


Freelance Good Guys: Steel Knuckle Squad

by TheGreys (alienjpeg)



Series: Looming Gaia [8]
Category: Looming Gaia
Genre: Action, Adventure, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Centaurs, Disturbing Themes, Drama, Elves, Fantasy, Forced Marriage, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Magic, Slavery, Team as Family, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:49:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienjpeg/pseuds/TheGreys
Summary: Four stories come together as one, telling the harrowing and heroic origins of the Steel Knuckle Squad.
Series: Looming Gaia [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/833844
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. The Student

**Author's Note:**

> This story was supposed to be released much earlier in the series. But I kept having problems with it, so it was abandoned…until now! This is the origin of the Steel Knuckle Squad, an unlikely group of mercenaries originally introduced in “The Wretched Forge”. The release date is odd, but I’ll still be placing this in the proper reading order on Ao3.
> 
> For concept art, discussions, memes and more, check out the official blog: https://loominggaia.tumblr.com/post/175087795478/looming-gaia-masterpost

**[CHAPTER 1: THE STUDENT]**

_WINTER, 5982_

Linde soared over the Midland Jungle in a gazebo, clutched in the claws of a scaly, winged behemoth that carried it through the skies. She observed the land below, watching the jungle fade into a temperate forest as the hours passed. Finally, she was headed home to Zhoulcha for a two-week vacation. After another grueling year of study at the World Athenaeum, the break couldn’t come soon enough.

Zhoulcha was a city built of twisted, thorny trunks. The trunks were magically warped by its fae populace, forced to grow into the towering, organic structures in which they lived. Perhaps they would resemble trees, if only they had leaves. But each structure was a branch of another, all connected into a single wooden mass overgrown with vines.

From high in the sky, Zhoulcha reminded Linde of the tumbleweeds that rolled across the Serkel Desert to the north. But rather than a desert, the mass was surrounded by a green forest teeming with life. The city tangled itself into the trees, branches wrapping around their trunks like arms to anchor its core. Should a strong enough wind blow and lift Zhoulcha into the sky, much of the surrounding forest would fly away with it.

The unique sight of the city dropped any foreigner’s jaw. But Linde Lumina was born and raised in Zhoulcha, and she barely gave its wonders a second glance as the dragon touched down in its open airfield. The long flight had exhausted her. She hefted her heavy bag onto her shoulder and dismounted from the gazebo with the other passengers. Tiny snowflakes were drifting down from the sky, leaving a fine layer of white powder beneath her feet.

Linde spotted a centaur standing not far from the airfield. A carriage was hitched to his equine back. The carriage tantalized Linde, but the centaur’s hide was striped with white and black like the zebras in the northern savannah. Zebras were unlucky, Linde’s father told her. Even the pattern on their hides brought bad fortune (not to mention it was garishly hideous, in Linde’s opinion). She changed direction and began heading to another carriage further in the distance, driven by an elf and pulled by tawny horses.

Well before she arrived, a family of goblins hailed the carriage and hopped aboard. Linde yelled at the driver, but he ignored her and continued down the long path to Zhoulcha proper. Linde turned all around in desperate search of another ride. All of the carriage services had been claimed—all except for the striped centaur, hollering at passersby to beckon them. They walked on by as if he did not even exist.

The wind was picking up. Linde saw ominous clouds rolling in and knew she had to make a decision quickly: ride a cursed carriage or walk through the wind and slush. Had she been dressed differently, maybe she would have walked. Now Linde was kicking herself for wearing her finest iguana-leather boots and dress of arctic foxfur. She just wanted to look presentable for her family.

Linde’s long, white ponytail whipped in the sudden gust. She let out a groan and trudged over to the striped centaur. He smiled brightly when she passed him a handful of coins and said, “To Zhoulcha’s east district. Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” said the centaur, bowing his head. His black hair was pulled into a short ponytail and shaved at the sides. “You are my first customer ever! I was starting to think I made a mistake, buying this carriage!”

Linde froze with one leg on the carriage’s step. “Is that so? Well, shouldn’t I get some kind of special discount then?” she asked.

The centaur’s smile faded. He swiped at the back of his head and stammered, “Oh, um…Well, I’m still in a lot of debt, you see, so I can’t really—”

“Blah, blah, blah, don’t waste my time! Discount, yes or no?” snapped Linde.

“Er, no,” the centaur replied sheepishly.

Linde wrinkled her button nose. “Then why are you still talking? Get moving before the weather sours,” she said, then she disappeared into the carriage.

Zhoulcha’s great branches snaked over sections of the road like bridges. They disappeared into the ground and sprouted up elsewhere, twisting and splitting with no rhyme or reason. Windows were opened in the trunks and archways, sealed with crystal panes and aglow with light from the interiors.

Linde leaned out the side of the carriage, calling to the driver, “Right here! Stop!” and he obeyed, stopping before an isolated, arch-shaped house. Its exterior was choked with ivy creeping in from the forest. Linde gathered her bag and carefully tip-toed through the slush until she reached a set of stairs. The stairs, like the house, were made from woody roots woven into a desired shape. She followed the stairs up to a door of wooden planks.

She raised her hand to knock, then hesitated. Turning back to the centaur, she hissed, “Why are you still standing there? Get off my family’s property, now!”

The centaur tipped his head, muttered a goodbye, and Linde waited until he was out of sight before she knocked on the door. If her father knew that a _striped_ centaur brought her home, he’d surely be upset. He might even haul her off to the local cleric to be cleansed of his cursed energy, and Linde was much too tired to deal with any of that.

The door swung open, revealing another elven face on the other side. Her name was Riona, an elfenne white of hair and gold of flesh, dressed in a fine gown. Iridescent beetle wings were sewn along the garment’s neckline.

“Linde, my sweet! I’m so glad yer finally home!” she greeted. She embraced her daughter briefly, then pulled her through the threshold and said, “Come in, hurry, hurry! There’s been ironblood scum skulkin’ around here lately...”

Linde stepped into a warm interior, all aglow with luminescent plants dangling from the ceiling. There was but a single long room, and in the center was a wooden table surrounded by colorful cushions for sitting. Linde slipped off her boots and tossed her bag on the floor, plopping down on a cushion as she whined, “Oh, Mother, it was a dreadful flight! The dragon smelled like a barn and the man next to me snored for hours! Couldn’t you have spent a little more for a first-class ride?”

Riona fetched a porcelain teapot from the other side of the room. She poured a cup of tea for Linde, took a seat beside her and replied, “Perhaps I could have, if I was sure we had the money. We’ll just see what yer father says when he gets home…”

Though Riona was Linde’s mother, no one would have guessed just by looking at them. Linde’s hair was white like her mother’s. But Linde herself was white from head to toe, every inch of her flesh pale as ivory. All except for her pink eyes. There was no race of elves on Looming Gaia with such eyes. Her father was a brown-skinned elf with hair like jet, so why did Linde look so different?

Doctors called Linde’s condition a “mutation”. It was a harmless loss of pigment, they said. But was it really harmless? Matuzans believed that zebras were evil spirits, that looking a pregnant woman in the eye would cause a miscarriage, that wearing black brought bad luck. Matuzan culture was plagued by superstition, and Riona feared what some of the people of this strange land must have believed about her strange child.

White was a sacred color in the Seelie Court, the native land from which Riona hailed. Linde surely would have been revered there and treated with nothing but the utmost respect. But the Seelie Court was another continent and another life away, one which Riona abandoned long ago to be with the Matuzan man she loved.

“He’ll be back some time tomorrow,” Riona told Linde. “He’s closing a deal on a beauty of a ship. And if it sells, that’s another year of schooling fer ye.”

“And a ride on a less pungent creature, I hope,” Linde mumbled.

After tea, Riona surprised her daughter with a cake. It was slathered in chocolate icing with fat, juicy jungle bees lining its round edges. The bees were coated in sugar, and when Riona cut into the cake, she revealed stacked layers of chocolate and honey. Most species would turn their nose up at such an excess of sugar, but elven metabolism was of a different sort.

“You made honey cake?” Linde queried as her mother set a slice before her. “You haven’t made that for me in years, no matter how much I begged!”

Riona smiled. “It’s such a pain to make, and what a mess it made of the kitchen! But I know it’s yer favorite. Ye’ll be back in school by the time yer twentieth birthday comes around, so consider it an early gift.”

“Twenty-two, Mom,” Linde corrected her, popping a sugared bee into her mouth. “I’ll be twenty-two this year.”

Riona’s brows jumped. “What? Oh, Great Titania, where have the years gone?”

Night soon fell over Zhoulcha. Wild candleroot sparked to life at the roadsides, each fleshy bulb glowing like a flame. Linde climbed a ladder into her old bedroom. It was a simple loft with a rolled-up mattress on the floor, covered in luxuriant furs. A beam stretched across the arched ceiling where her entire wardrobe used to hang. That was where she hung her dress after she changed into her nightgown, rolled out her mattress, and settled into bed.

*

Nemeto jammed his key into the lock with trembling hands. Linde’s white lashes fluttered, eyes snapping open at the hasty jingle of his key ring. She peeked over the edge of the loft and saw her father hurry inside, slamming the door behind him.

“Dad!” she cried gleefully. With a wave of her hand, a magical slope of ice manifested from the loft to the floor. Linde used it to slide down and crashed into her father’s arms.

“Oh, you’re here! Welcome home, honeybee!” Nemeto grunted, then he began to laugh.

Riona groggily climbed down the ladder to the loft on the opposite side of the room. She glanced at the slope of ice and barked, “Linde Lumina, what did I tell you about casting spells in the house?”

The albino elfenne ignored her mother’s scolding and squeezed her father tight. She withdrew after a moment, nose crinkled with disgust. “Ugh, dad! You’re all sweaty!” she griped.

Nemeto shook out the collar of his tunic as he set his suitcase on the floor. He was slightly out of breath when he told her, “Yes, well, a couple of foreigners were trailing me all through town. Surly-looking ironbloods, both of them!”

He shuddered, checking twice to make sure the door was locked behind him. “They probably would have jumped me if I got home a moment later, and that would have been especially catastrophic considering…” He smiled as he kneeled down to open his suitcase, then pulled out a fat sack that jingled with coin. “I closed the deal! The ship is sold!”

Riona and Linde cheered at once, hugging eachother and then Nemeto. Nemeto set the bag aside before collapsing on one of the floor cushions. He was tall and slim like most elves, his black hair smoothed back and shiny with oil. He turned back to Linde and said brightly, “Looks like you’re getting another two years at the Athenaeum, my dear!”

“Two years?” his daughter queried, shoulders sagging. “But graduation is next year.”

Nemeto’s grin remained. “Not for you, it isn’t. We’re enrolling you in an extra year of hazard magic after that. Perhaps even two more, if I can get my hands on that old war ship in Matmili…”

Linde’s pink eyes rounded. She whirled around to face her mother, stamping her bare foot on the floor. “Moooom!” she groaned. “Talk some sense into him, will you? I can’t stomach another year of this crap! I want to take art and design!”

“Watch your tongue, young lady! You sound like a soldier,” scolded Riona. “And I agree with your father. A few extra years of hazard magic will be good for you.”

Linde let out a long, dramatic moan as she collapsed face-first on a cushion. Her voice was muffled by the fabric when she argued, “If you don’t want me to speak like a soldier, then why are you training me to be one? I’m the only girl in my class! I mean, there is one scylla there, but she’s the size of a man so she may as well be one!”

“Linde, that’s quite enough,” Nemeto said firmly. “The world is crawling with heartless degenerates. Because you are such a delicate and special young lady, they will prey upon you like hungry lions.”

Linde simply rolled her eyes. Riona waggled her finger and added, “You better listen to him, Linde! Your father has sailed all the seas. He’s stepped on every continent but the wretched soil of Lostland! Don’t you think he knows what he’s talking about?”

“You’re both incredibly paranoid, that’s what I think!” Linde replied sharply. “I’ve never been bothered by these so-called _degenerates_ you’re always ranting about, not once in my life!”

Nemeto sighed, “That’s because we’ve always taken great measures to protect you, honeybee. We hope and pray that you’ll never have to experience the kind of degeneracy we fear, but you know we won’t be around forever. There will come a day when you’ll have to fend for yourself, and we just want you to be prepared.”

“We’re in debt up to our eyeballs, but we’ll bear it so long as you can attend the safest school in the kingdom,” added Riona. She prodded Linde’s forehead with her finger and went on, “We make sacrifices so you won’t have to. We do this because we love you. We don’t do it to punish you”

Pulling a pillow over her head, Linde mumbled, “I want to be a dressmaker like you, but all I know how to do is fight! I’ve never gotten into a real fight in all my life! This feels like such a waste of time!”

Riona walked over and sat by her side. She stroked her fingers through Linde’s white hair and told her, “You’re not a human, Linde. You won’t shrivel up and die in a week. You have so many more years ahead of you! I’ll teach you my trade in time, but right now I want you to put all your focus into school.”

“It’s easy to avoid a fight when there’s nothing to fight about,” said Nemeto. “But the real world is not so peaceful. One day you will be faced with a conflict that you can’t flee, and on that day, I swear you will thank us for everything.”

*

Between three Luminas, the honeycake disappeared by nightfall. Linde and her parents played board games until their eyelids grew heavy, and then they crawled off to bed in their lofts. Riona and Nemeto cuddled up in one loft, Linde to the other, and before long they all fell asleep.

Linde wandered the long, winding corridors of the World Athenaeum in her dreams. She just couldn’t find the door to her classroom, and each time she turned a corner, there were only more corners ahead. She heard a clock ticking in the distance and she began to sweat. She was going to be late for her class! The clock only grew louder as she began running through the halls. She growled in frustration as she turned another corner, only to be met with a dead end.

She heard a sound behind her, like someone shaking a doorknob. Linde turned around and was suddenly facing the door she was looking for. She reached out to grab the knob, but drew back when it turned on its own. Someone was trying to open it from the other side, but it seemed to be locked.

Confused and distressed, Linde desperately searched the door for a locking mechanism. The doorknob shook faster and more violently until finally, it fell off with the loud thump of brass against wood.

Linde woke with a jolt. She shot upright and found herself back in her loft. At that very moment, the front door swung open and two large, shadowy figures barreled inside. Riona and Nemeto awoke in a panic, peering over the edge of their loft at the intruders. Riona let out a screech.

“Get out! Get out of my house or I’ll call the—!” roared Nemeto, but he was silenced when a crossbow bolt pierced through his neck. Linde shrieked from the opposing loft, watching in horror as her father staggered back, grasping at the projectile.

“Nemeto! Oh, gods! Oh, gods, no!” panicked Riona. Her husband hit the floor, silent and unmoving. She frantically tended to him while one of the intruders began scaling the ladder to Linde’s loft.

Linde scrambled backwards, but she was soon cornered against the wall. She shrieked high as a whistle, “Get away from me!” and bursts of white light exploded in her hands. She lobbed a beam of magical frost at the intruder. Its energy lit up the room for a brief moment, revealing a golden, bearded face behind an iron helmet. Elves did not have beards like this creature. He was a dworf, a commoner species with iron running through his veins.

He also wore iron plates, and they protected him from Linde’s spell. The frost repelled from his armor like oil from water. It dissipated into the air and left nothing but a bit of snow on his beard. Though he was half her size, the dworf snatched Linde by her gown and dragged her to the edge of the loft as if she were a doll. She kicked and screamed in his grip until he hefted her over the railing. Another iron-plated commoner caught her below. He appeared to be a troll, if his ape-like posture and massive clawed hands were any indication.

One of those hands clamped over Linde’s mouth, silencing her horrified scream as she watched the dworf fire another bolt at her mother. Riona had just opened her mouth to yell at them. She let out nothing more than a strangled croak when the bolt struck her in the head.

Tears streamed down Linde’s face. Her heart became a stone in her chest as her parents lie dead before her, and just a moment later, she found herself bound in iron chains, gagged with cloth, and thrown into the back of a carriage waiting outside.

The dworf and the troll quickly climbed in with her. The interior was strangely familiar. Linde caught a glimpse of a zebra-striped hide through the front window just before she was pushed onto the floor. “Step on it, ya fuckin’ animal!” bellowed the troll. With a sudden lurch, the carriage was speeding down the back roads of Zhoulcha after midnight.


	2. The Felon

**[CHAPTER 2: THE FELON]**

_SPRING, 5980_

At just eighteen years old, how could Balthazaar have any regrets? He was a strong and healthy human who grew up in the Matuzan city of Rodanga, born to loving parents. He had three brothers he loved dearly—even if they got on his nerves more often than not. As the eldest brother, Balthazaar always tried to set a good example. He never wanted to disappoint his family.

But one month ago, that’s exactly what he did. One too many drinks led to one terrible accident at the local tavern, and Balthazaar was forced to flee Matuzu Kingdom. Fortunately for him, Rodanga sat on the border between Matuzan and Morite lands. Balthazaar’s family packed a bag for him, hugged and kissed him goodbye, and urged him to escape into the night. He made a long trek under the moonlit savannah, stepping onto the sands of the Serkel Desert by morning.

Now, one month later, he was an undocumented migrant toiling away on some warlock’s farm. This was not the life Balthazaar ever envisioned for himself. But it was his reality, and he had no choice but to accept it or else succumb to the unforgiving Serkel Desert.

The warlock never cared about Balthazaar’s questionable past or his status as an illegal alien. The old goblin had one foot in the grave, his body weathered with age and sand exposure. “I never married, never had children. Never bothered with all that nonsense,” he told Balthazaar. “Now I am old and my regrets are too heavy to shoulder. My arthritis is so bad I can scarcely move anymore. Tend my crops and animals, and I’ll let you live in the barn free of charge.”

Now that he was a beggar, Balthazaar could no longer be a chooser. He worked the warlock’s farm from sunup to sundown every single day. He toiled under the brutal sun, tilling dry desert soil and making it viable with fertilizer. He tended the livestock and protected them from thieves and wild animals. He made the long journey into Edelrhun proper for groceries, cooked for the old goblin and even cleaned his chamber pot each night.

If only he could go back in time, Balthazaar would have avoided that tavern altogether. The path he’d stumbled onto since then was miserable, hardly worth walking at all. Perhaps he could return to Matuzu Kingdom one day when the memory of his bad deed faded, when he was older and could grow a proper beard to disguise himself. But the life he was living now was not one he could endure until then.

Though he still prayed to the gods, Balthazaar was losing his faith. They couldn’t possibly be listening if they had forsaken him like this. He wondered if his bad deed had disgusted them enough to turn their backs on him completely.

It was a night like any other. Balthazaar stepped into the little sandstone house to empty the warlock’s chamber pot. The house was but one room with sandy rugs layered on the floor. There was a bedroll in one corner, a chair in the other, and a shelf stocked with all manner of housewares like pots and pans.

The warlock sat stooped over in his chair where he usually was, calloused brown hands folded over the top of his cane. Cotton robes were draped over his frail body. His large goblin nose took up the majority of real estate upon his face, his long, pointed ears drooping like wilted plants.

The chamber pot was sitting beneath his chair, the lid already sealed and ready to pick up. Balthazaar approached the old warlock, but he wouldn’t move aside. “Excuse me,” said Balthazaar. Still the old warlock remained in his chair, staring down at the floor. He was always falling asleep during the day, and hard of hearing on top of that. So Balthazaar let out a loud whistle and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Old man!” he exclaimed. “I need you to move aside so I can grab that pot!”

Still there was no movement or sound from the goblin. Balthazaar suddenly realized how cold the air around him felt, despite the dry, lingering heat of the day. He pressed his fingertips to the warlock’s throat. There was no pulse, no warmth at all.

He was most certainly dead.

Balthazaar stood before him, silent for a long moment. Finally, he turned his eyes towards the ceiling and mumbled a prayer to the celestials. “Almighty gods, I pray you hear me from the stars. Please guide this man’s soul to the great beyond, and we upon Gaia will guide his body back into Her soil from which he began. Praise be to Mother Gaia.”

Balthazaar lifted the warlock’s body from his chair with ease. The corpse was cold and stiffened in an awkward position, but weighed no more than a human child. Balthazaar carried it some distance from the house, where he began to dig a grave. By the time the moon reached its highest point, the body was resting in its final place under a heavy blanket of soil.

Though he didn’t know much about Morite culture, Balthazaar did know that Morites preferred to be buried with their favorite possessions in life. He buried the old warlock with his trusty cane and one yam from his farm. There was little else to his name but a few underfed animals and a chamber pot.

In fact, he hadn’t even given Balthazaar his name. Balthazaar never asked, and in return, the old man never asked about his past. Balthazaar knew little about him except that he was a hermit with no friends or family, no next of kin, and no one to inherit the things he left behind upon his death.

That night, Balthazaar retired to the house instead of the barn. It seemed the gods were listening after all.

*

There was no time to waste. When Balthazaar saw the notice posted at the town well, he rushed back to his farm to fetch one of his donkeys. The notice was from the wealthy family who owned the town textile mill. There was a ceremony happening that afternoon, it said, where they would offer their daughters’ hands in marriage to whoever offered the best dowry.

The donkey was the fattest, most valuable animal on Balthazaar’s farm. He only inherited it two days ago, but he was more than willing to trade it away for a wife. Finally he would have the quiet, normal life he always dreamed of! And one day when he returned to Matuzu Kingdom, he would have a beautiful wife, successful children, and spoiled grandchildren to take with him.

Balthazaar arrived at the Ahlmas mansion. It was a great stone compound sitting on the highest hill in Edelrhun, and its lush courtyard was bustling with men of all kinds. Leading his donkey through the crowd, Balthazaar saw the Ahlmas family themselves standing before the dry fountain in the center of the courtyard. Mr. and Mrs. Ahlmas were an old elven couple, dressed in silk finery and gleaming jewelry.

Among them stood their five daughters, lined up from youngest to oldest. There was no telling an adult elf’s age from looks alone, for their skin never wrinkled no matter how old they grew. But Balthazaar could surely tell an adult from a child, and among the three elfennes were two little elfettes standing only as tall as their parents’ waists.

The men in the crowd called for their attention just the same. The last thing Balthazaar wanted was a child bride, so he jumped on the donkey’s back and urged it forward, charging his way to the front of the mob. Ahead, a man was speaking to Mr. Ahlmas with a sickly rooster in his hands. The man spoke rapidly, desperately shoving the rooster towards him. Mr. Ahlmas was far from impressed with his offer and shoved him away, sending him stumbling back into the crowd.

“What a pathetic turn-out!” crowed Mrs. Ahlmas, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I doubt these filthy peasants have five gold pieces between the lot of them!”

Mr. Ahlmas raised his arms and called to the mob, “Won’t someone with a worthwhile offer step forward? My daughters are worth more than your sick cocks and counterfeit coins! Please, you insult us with this nonsense!”

Then they saw a human man, rising above the lowly crowd atop his steed. The donkey stopped in front of the couple and the man dismounted. He was wearing exotic, colorful cotton garb. He was young and in his prime, his black, curly hair cropped short and neat.

He spoke with a northern Matuzan accent when he said, “ _I_ have a worthwhile offer for you, sir. My name is Balthazaar Valentino, and this here is my finest animal.” He patted the donkey’s neck. The animal snorted, ears twitching to bat a fly.

Mr. Ahlmas looked at the animal, then back at Balthazaar. The frustration on his face softened. “Ah, finally!” he began. “This is a decent offer indeed, Mr. Valentino. We’re off to a good start, but I’d like to know my daughters will be leaving with someone who can provide for them. What is it that you do for a living?”

“I’m a—” Balthazaar paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘I’m a farmer’ didn’t sound very impressive.

“I own a farm,” he decided. “I grow yams and raise plenty of good livestock just like the one you see here. I cannot promise your daughter a mansion like that,” he gestured to the massive house ahead, “but she will live a happy, simple life in the countryside, and then one day we will retire to my family’s property in the Midland Savannah.”

Mr. Ahlmas’ eyebrows jumped. “The Midland Savannah?” he queried.

Mrs. Ahlmas leaned towards her husband and whispered, “He’s Matuzan!” Her grin revealed pearly-white teeth, eagerness sparkling in her eyes when she glanced at Balthazaar.

Stroking his pointed chin, Mr. Ahlmas nodded and said, “I see. Well, sir, I must say you dress and speak well. Especially for a human. But, er, you are aware that all of my daughters are elven, correct?”

Balthazaar shrugged and replied, “We Matuzans don’t fret over such matters. They call our kingdom the ‘melting pot of the world’, after all. My brothers will carry on the bloodline; I just want a simple life with a good woman.”

“Hm. And how old are you? You seem quite young.”

“I turned twenty-two this year,” Balthazaar lied.

Once again, Mrs. Ahlmas hissed in her husband’s ear, “This is the best we’re going to get, _Amro_!”

“Very well,” said Mr. Ahlmas. He took the donkey’s lead from Balthzaar’s hand and gestured towards his daughters with the other. “You’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse, and I can see that you have a decent lineage. Since you are a human, I offer you my eldest daughter, Feredil.”

The elfenne at the end of the lineup stepped forward. Her head was shaven, pointed ears decorated with heavy gold earrings. She wore a matching gold necklace, contrasting with her dark skin. Her eyes were the color of blood-soaked earth and just as rich, matching the paint upon her lips.

She was stunningly beautiful, thought Balthazaar, and her beauty tied his tongue into knots when he tried to speak to her. He let out nothing more than an awkward croak, then cleared his throat and told her father, “Thank you very much, sir. She’s a beautiful creature! I would have chosen her myself.”

Mr. Ahlmas smiled. “She is. And she will remain beautiful even in old age, unlike any human wife. She is about forty years your senior, so you needn’t worry about widowing her.”

Balthazaar’s eyes rounded. “F-forty years?” he blurted. “So she’s, uh, in her sixties?”

“Yes, in the prime of her life just as you are. You will make a lovely couple,” said Mr. Ahlmas. He pecked his daughter on the head and told her, “Treat this man well, Feredil, and he will do the same. You have a bountiful farm waiting for you!”

“And Matuzan citizenship, you lucky charm,” said Mrs. Ahlmas, trapping Feredil in one last embrace.

Feredil wriggled out of her mother’s grip, brows drooped with concern. “But—but mom, dad, he’s _human_! Don’t give me to this man! I-I want children!” she pleaded.

“Feredil, you’ve been meek and pleasant your whole life. Don’t start acting up now!” warned Mr. Ahlmas. “We can’t always get what we want. These last few months have proven that a thousand times over.” He shook his head a little, then pushed Feredil into Balthazaar’s arms.

He said, “You two can get to know eachother while we sort through the rest of these suitors. I’ll sign your marriage certificate by sunfall.”

“Yes, right before the Guard comes to take the house,” mumbled Feredil.

“Daughter, you hush your mouth!” her mother barked, slapping her lightly on the cheek. Balthazaar reflexively held his new wife tighter, blocking her face with his hand in case Mrs. Ahlmas decided to deliver another.

Instead, Mrs. Ahlmas leaned in close and spoke through her teeth, “Remember what we talked about, Feredil. Treat this nice man well, I mean it! We’re counting on you and your sisters. Do not let this family down.”

With that, she returned to her husband’s side and the two of them accepted the next suitor in line. Balthazaar led Feredil towards a bench across the courtyard. He brushed the sand off the seat before she sat down, so not to soil her white gown. She did so with a huff, crossing her arms and legs tightly.

Balthazaar sat down beside her, wearing a big smile when he said, “My father is a good man. He taught me everything I know. I’ll be a good husband to you, I promise. Whatever it is you want, I will find a way to make it happen.”

“I don’t care if you give me the moon and stars,” snapped Feredil. “I want a house full of laughing little children, and that’s the one thing you could never give me! Ugh, the nerve of my mother and father! I can’t believe they would be so cruel to me! They must hate me as much as the gods do!”

“No,” Balthazaar said firmly, clasping her hands in his own. “We have not been forsaken! We will make a life worth living for ourselves, no matter what. So long as you don’t give up, I won’t either. Will you stay by my side, Feredil?”

Feredil stared him down for a long moment. Then she glanced at her parents by the fountain. She watched as they passed her youngest sister off to a shambling old goblin in exchange for three goats. “I suppose I’ll stay, so long as you give me reason to,” she sighed. “Why did you seek an elven bride, really?”

Balthazaar didn’t know what to say. The truth was, he was simply not at liberty to be choosy. A beggar like him was lucky to get any woman life threw at him, he thought. But so lucky he was to win the beautiful daughter of a wealthy business tycoon! His family would be proud, his brothers so jealous!

After a pause, Balthazaar said to her, “Nobody wants to die alone, right? I don’t care what species you are. You’re so beautiful, I’ve fallen in love already!”

“You don’t know what love is,” Feredil told him flatly, yanking her hands from his grip. “You are a child, and I’m insulted that my parents think you’re good enough for me. I cursed the gods for denying me children, but I was wrong. They have granted me a child and it is _you_! What a twisted sense of humor they have! What have I done to deserve this?”

The elfenne’s voice cracked, and then she was quaking with sobs. Balthazaar stared at her, dumbfounded and utterly lost. Just when he thought things were looking up, they began tumbling down harder than ever. The gods had a twisted sense of humor indeed.

“Listen,” he began gently, “if you really don’t want to marry me, I won’t force you to. I can take my animal back and walk out of here.”

Feredil suddenly glared at him, fists clenched in her lap. “And what? Leave me with my wretched parents so they can pass me off to some half-dead goblin or a reeking troll?” she growled, gesturing to her second-eldest sister walking away with a troll. “No, Mr. Valentino! _You_ asked my hand, and now _you_ will take responsibility for your decision! Don’t think me a fool. I know you seek a bride you can bed all you want without consequence. Well, have no fear, because you won’t be getting a single child out of me!” she spat bitterly.

Balthazaar opened his mouth to argue, then closed it and let out a growl instead. He said, “I’m not the pig you think I am, woman. I wasn’t born from manure like the rest of these men!” He swept his finger over the crowd ahead. “I can tell nothing I say is going to change your mind, so you’ll just have to let me prove it to you.”

*

Everything seemed to go wrong since the old warlock died.

Balthazaar’s crops began to wither and no amount of water or fertilizer was reviving them. Once the leaves dried up and all the tubers shriveled, he had no choice but to slaughter one of the animals for food. He dragged one of the chickens to the chopping block. Feredil held it steady as Balthazaar raised the axe and chopped off its head.

The corpse was suddenly consumed by light. Feredil scrambled back in fright, she and her husband watching as the light changed shape. It deformed and expanded before fading, and what it left behind was so horrific and beyond comprehension, Feredil screamed herself unconscious. Balthazaar caught her before she hit the ground, though he was just as distressed by the sight before him.

A gorgon’s corpse was lying across the chopping block in place of the chicken, bloody and beheaded. Somehow the chicken had transformed into this snake-like species upon its death, but why? Feredil regained consciousness, nearly losing it again when she looked back at the corpse. She hyperventilated as she hid her face behind her hands.

Balthazaar cautiously approached the body and nudged it with his foot. It was not coming back to life, nor was turning back into a chicken.

“What on Gaia is wrong with you? Why would you do this?” cried Feredil. She pulled off her sandal and threw it at Balthazaar, striking him in the head.

“W-what do you mean? I have no idea what’s going on here!” Balthazaar replied breathlessly. “What happened to my damned chicken?”

The anger on Feredil’s face softened. She swiped at her tears and cried, “Dark magic, that’s what happened to it! You didn’t know about this?”

“No, I swear to you!” said Balthazaar. “I’m human, I couldn’t use magic if I tried!”

Feredil pointed a finger towards the gorgon corpse and told him, “Well, _someone_ cursed this poor woman and turned her into a farm animal! Who would do such a thing?”

Balthazaar’s face blanched.

_The warlock_.

He was silent for much too long, so Feredil turned to him and asked, “Balthazaar, where did you get that animal?”

“Uh,” Balthazaar hesitated, clearing his throat, “I-I don’t remember. I’ve had it for years. Never seemed odd to me…”

“Well, we have to report this to the Edelrhun Guard at once!”

“No, no!” Balthazaar said quickly, already rushing to dispose of the body. “I’ll take care of everything. Do _not_ call the Guard here for any reason.”

Feredil furrowed her brows. “Why not?”

 _Because they’ll detain me and throw me back to Matuzu_ , thought Balthazaar. But the words that came out of his mouth were, “Whose axe has blood on it, huh? If this gorgon has been living her life as a chicken for the past—however many years—then surely she was already presumed dead long ago. We should lay her to rest and put this horrible incident behind us.”

Feredil hadn’t the energy to argue as she helped Balthazaar dig a grave. It was just beside the grave of the old warlock. Then she stood aside, unable to watch as her husband dragged the body over, placing its decapitated head roughly where it should have been on its shoulders. Balthazaar tossed a handful of chicken feed into the grave, for that was what he knew the victim to love most in life, and then covered it with dirt.

Balthazaar and Feredil were hungry to begin with, and all the panic and grave-digging just made their stomachs growl louder. They still needed to eat. So they readied another chicken on the chopping block and off came its head.

Feredil’s back hit the sandy ground once more. Yet again, the chicken transformed into a dead gorgon. Equally furious and frightened, Balthazaar dragged a protesting goat out of its paddock and tied it to a post near the chopping block. He used a knife to sever an artery in its neck. The goat bled out and died in minutes.

Its body too was consumed by light. The light dissipated, leaving the corpse of a male satyr behind. Yet another victim of the warlock, and now Balthazaar.

Feredil sobbed herself into sickness. Balthazaar ordered her to stay in the house as he dragged every animal on the farm to the chopping block and slaughtered them one by one. Every chicken was a gorgon, every goat a satyr, the last donkey a centaur—each one cursed by the warlock and made to be his livestock.

A lot of mysteries were suddenly coming to light. Goblins were a vegetarian species and the warlock was no exception. Not only did he avoid meat, but he forbid Balthazaar from eating it too. If an animal looked sick, he told Balthazaar to drag it out to the dunes and bury it alive. He only used the livestock for their byproducts—their eggs, milk, horn, and hair. These poor victims had likely been stuck in their animal forms for years.

There wasn’t a single normal animal among them. Once the paddocks were empty, Balthazaar was left with a colossal, grisly mess to deal with. Six people lie dead on his property, one of them a weighty centaur. He would have to dig a mass grave to hide them all, but that would take all night and he still hadn’t had a bite to eat. Even then, blood would leech out of the soil for weeks each time he walked across it.

The warlock was dead, the crops were dead, the livestock was dead, all in the course of a week. This place was truly cursed, thought Balthazaar.

He trudged back to the house and pushed the door open, leaving a bloody handprint on its wooden surface. “Feredil,” he panted, “we have to leave town. Now.”


	3. The Slave

**[CHAPTER 3: THE SLAVE]**

_SUMMER, 5981_

The city of Barha stretched along Serkel’s northwestern coast. From the sailors’ view, it was but hundreds of square peaks topping the cliffside, the flat rooftops of sandstone buildings which overlooked the ocean. The chief’s castle towered above all else, casting a shadow over the slums to face the desert sun.

In the castle’s highest tower dwelled the chief’s personal wizard. He was a wise old elf, well practiced in many schools of magic. The wizard’s main job was to heal any curses and ailments which fell upon the noble family. But in his free time, he agreed to teach the family’s favorite slave a school of his choosing.

Skel chose telekinesis.

“Ah, very good choice,” said the wizard. “Telekinesis is what we call a ‘mental magic’ because it is exercised from the brain rather than the heart. Goblins naturally excel at such schools. You’ll be a master by the time I’m done with you, Mr. Lin Del.”

It had been many years since then. Skel trained with the wizard three times a week from the time he was in his teens. Now an adult goblin at the age of 35, Skel boasted telekinetic powers nearly beyond the wizard’s. He remembered the days when he strained and strained his brain just to make a spoon tremble. He’d leave the wizard’s tower with such terrible headaches that he would collapse in the corridor before he could reach his chamber.

These days, he could lob a chair across the room without so much as a facial twitch.

Skel furrowed his brow, concentrating on the heavy stone block before him. The castle wizard observed as he stood a safe distance away. Skel willed a vision into his mind, imagining the block rising into the air as vividly as he could. He could feel its weight resisting the pull of his mind.

The block was the size of a cow’s head and ten times as dense. Skel felt the veins in his head bulging, his skull expanding as his brain pulsed with power. He pressed his green fingertips to his skull to counter the pressure, gnashing his teeth in exertion.

“Close your eyes. Concentrate on the vision in your mind,” advised the wizard. Skel obeyed. He stopped seeing with his eyes and turned his vision inward. His body quaked as if he were lifting a heavy weight, yet he was standing a body’s length from the block, not touching it at all.

He heard something scrape against wood. Skel cracked an eye open and saw one side of the block levitating off the table. He reached one trembling hand forth and made a motion as if to lift the other side. Physically the motion did nothing, but it helped his vision become stronger as he imagined the block rising. The other side slowly began to lift until the whole block hovered two feet off the table.

“Balance it. There, very good. Now hold it for—” the wizard began, then flinched when the block suddenly dropped. It crashed loudly onto the table, one leg snapping under the force. The table and the block hit the floor and so did Skel.

The wizard rushed towards the goblin and dropped to his knees before him. He pulled a folding paper fan from the pocket of his robes and began fanning Skel’s face until the goblin’s eyes fluttered open.

Skel let out a groan, green eyes blearily drifting around in his skull. “You’re alright,” the wizard assured him. “Just a case of mild arcane fatigue, that’s all! I think that concludes our lesson for today, hm?”

Skel mumbled something back, slurred and unintelligible as he staggered up to his feet. The wizard guided him to a plush chair to rest. There he sat until the room stopped spinning and the ache in his head started to dull. Not long after, the door to the tower creaked open.

A pretty elven face peeked inside. It was the face of the chief’s daughter, Jasenia, and the wizard regarded her with a shallow bow when she stepped inside. “Good evening, Skel. Good evening, wizard. How’s the training going?” she asked.

She was delicate in structure with a short, impish face. Her skin was golden brown as the sands, black hair meticulously styled into a rectangular shape that stretched upwards. She and Skel were the exact same age, though as an elf, she would always appear younger than he.

The wizard chuckled, “Skel is getting fearsome in his abilities. Soon you may regret taking those iron shackles off his wrists.”

“Oh, please,” said Jasenia, waving a dismissive hand. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He loves us too much,” She flashed a big, white smile as she reached out to Skel and affectionately traced her fingertip along his pointed ear.

Skel shuddered, infected by her contagious smile. She went on, “Anyway, I just came to tell you we’ll be having a guest at dinner tomorrow. He’s some important noble from Kandul, so Daddy wants everyone to wear their nicest clothes.”

The wizard pinched his worn robe and examined it, brows drooping with concern. “Oh, these rags won’t do then…” he mumbled.

Jasenia took Skel’s hands and pulled him out of the chair. “Come on, Skelly. I have some brand new clothes for you in my chamber,” she said with a wink, and before he knew it, Skel was being dragged down the corridor.

*

The chief of Barha gathered around the long dining table with his family. The dining room was spacious and open to the breeze, each guest enjoying a view of the sea through the open wall. Tropical plants thrived in their pots around the room. The scent of their blooming flowers mixed with that of the steaming feast on the table, and the hungry goblin slaves could only watch as the royal family ate in front of them.

The chief was a jolly, broad-shouldered elf who always appeared to be smiling. His black hair flowed long and loose from his crown of seashells, and his clothes were made from thin silk that billowed in the breeze. All of Barha’s people wore similar clothes to keep cool in the tropical heat. All except the slaves, sentenced to crude rags made from whatever scraps they could scrounge.

“Attention, everyone,” began the chief, raising his crystal goblet. He swept the goblet towards a well-dressed elven man to his right and continued, “We have a very important guest among us this evening. This is King Lutandi of Kandul. He and I will be discussing diplomatic matters these next few days, so do give him a warm welcome.”

Jasenia, her mother, and three siblings politely greeted the foreign king. “Thank you for having me,” said King Lutandi, offering a reserved smile. “It has been a pleasure to explore your beautiful city. I am hoping we can—”

The king paused as his gaze rested on Skel. The goblin was sitting beside Jasenia at the other end of the table, quietly chewing through a slice of a honeydew melon.

A deep scowl crossed King Lutandi’s face. He pointed a finger at Skel and barked, “You, slave! What are you doing at the table? Get out of that seat at once! What gall you have to disrespect your masters this way!”

Skel froze, staring back at him in confusion. The honeydew slice hovered half-way to his open mouth. The chief of Barha waved his hands and explained through a chuckle, “Oh, no, no! There is no cause for alarm, Your Highness. This one is allowed to dine with us. He is a slave, yes, but he is, er… _special_.”

The king raised an eyebrow. “Special? How so?” he asked. “Never in all my life have I seen a slave sitting among royalty!”

Dabbing his lips with a napkin, the chief told him, “Skel here has been with us since he was just a little one. It’s a funny story, really! We had him imported all the way from Kelvingyard as a birthday present for my eldest daughter. Ah, she used to play with him like a doll. She’d dress him up in little outfits and play mommy! She was the best mother he ever had I’m sure!”

He laughed, paused briefly to sip from his goblet, then continued, “Of course, she eventually took a husband in Warud and had children of her own. We considered putting Skel to work out at the stables, but my little Jasenia had already made fast friends with him.” He gestured to Jasenia, sitting a few seats to his right.

With a shrug, he finished, “I suppose this is exactly why they say not to get soft with your slaves. Before long, they become like beloved pets and you can’t help but feed them scraps from your own plate! We do treasure our Skel. He is like one of the family.”

King Lutandi furrowed his brow, eyes darting between the chief, Jasenia, and Skel. “I see,” he said slowly. “I can’t help but notice his wrists are bare. You must have a lot of trust in him.”

“Oh, yes. He hasn’t once cast a spell at us after all these decades. I don’t anticipate he’ll start any time soon,” replied the chief. “In fact, he’s taking magic lessons from my personal wizard! To say this goblin is loyal is an understatement.”

The king almost laughed in disbelief. He blurted, “What? You’re really teaching your slave magic? Chief, please, you are simply _begging_ for trouble…”

The other goblin slaves tended the royal family, refilling their drinks and cleaning up messes as they went. Skel listened to his chief and the king converse. They soon lost his attention when he felt delicate fingertips grazing his thigh. He glanced over at Jasenia, smiling and batting her lashes back at him.

She discreetly tickled him under the table. Skel pretended to cough to hide his giggle, quickly stuffing his mouth with more honeydew. Two could play at that game, he thought, and he tipped Jasenia’s chair back with a telekinetic pulse.

The elfenne clutched the edge of the table with a gasp. Her father was occupied with the king, but her mother and a couple of her siblings noticed her behaving strangely. Jasenia’s mother simply smiled and shook her head. Her younger brother rolled his eyes.

“…How could I sell him when he brings my daughter such happiness?” the chief said to the king. “I couldn’t possibly! As long as my children are happy, I am happy too. Spoiled rotten, all of them!” He let out a hearty laugh.

The feast was reduced to crumbs by the end of the hour. As the slaves began picking up soiled dishes, Jasenia leaned in and whispered in Skel’s ear, “Meet me in my chamber later.”

He watched her skip merrily away, jolly and carefree much like her father was. The sheer layers of her dress billowed gracefully behind her. Skel couldn’t wipe the dopey smile off his face whenever he laid eyes upon her. To him, she was joy incarnate.

Skel was a “slave” by technicality only. In practice, he walked away from the dinner table and the other slaves were left to pick up after him. He hadn’t scrubbed a dish, swept the floor, washed clothes, or done any slave duties in decades. He didn’t do them because they were not expected of him.

He was one of the family, and it was all because of Jasenia. It was she who bawled and pleaded with her parents when they tried to put him to work all those years ago. “Don’t make him sleep in the scary basement! How can he play with me if he’s doing slave work all day? Mommy, daddy, please! He’s my friend!” she wailed until she was red in the face, and her parents couldn’t possibly refuse her.

“She’ll grow up and lose interest in him,” they reasoned. But the years passed on and on, and Skel and Jasenia only seemed to grow closer with each one. They were inseparable, and there was no denying their happiness. The chief had better things to do than fret about it. He knew that when the time came for them to part, they would part.

Until then, Skel freshened up in the washroom before making his way to Jasenia’s bedchamber. He scrubbed his teeth with a rag and baking soda, polished his bald, conical head, and rubbed cologne behind his long ears.

All of Gaia thought his kind “ugly cousins” to the elves. Elves had a certain kind of grace and elegance that was unique to them, while goblins were short and knobby, clumsy with their gangly limbs, unsightly with their conical heads and oversized noses.

What Jasenia saw in him, Skel even couldn’t begin to know. She must have seen straight through his vessel and into his heart. Perhaps she saw all the love he had for her.

Skel passed another goblin in the corridor. She was a rickety old thing dressed in rags, the ringlets of her iron shackles jingling as she scrubbed the stone floor. She glared at him as he approached, then spit at his feet when he passed. Skel paused briefly, glaring back at her.

The old slave hissed, “Plaything. She’ll tire of you like an old toy.”

Skel narrowed his eyes and growled back, “Hold your tongue, hob!”

“Ha! ‘Hob’, you say, as if you’re not a lowly hob yourself!” she replied. She shook her sponge at him and dirty droplets flew forth onto his robe. “Don’t think yourself above us for a second! You’re nothing but mongrel shit painted up pretty, you fool—ah!”

The old slave cried out, falling backwards as her bucket of water suddenly lifted itself into the air and poured over her head. Skel stormed down the corridor as she hollered curses after him. Finally he reached Jasenia’s door, marked by a flower pattern carved into the wood.

He let himself into the bedroom. He was greeted by hundreds of plants that outgrew their pots long ago, spreading their ivy and colorful flowers along each wall.

The ivy clung to the dresser, stretched across the floor, and climbed up the bedposts to form a canopy over the large, plush bed. There Jasenia lie on her belly, flipping through a book. She was clad in a simple nightgown, and her brown eyes sparkled as they flashed up at Skel.

“Skel Lin Del, close the door,” she said. Skel immediately obeyed.mJasenia tossed the book aside and sat up, folding her hands in her lap. “Skel Lin Del, spin in a circle!” she commanded. Skel felt his muscles jerk against his will, as if he were a puppet on strings. He twirled in a complete circle and then stopped, facing her once more.

“Come on, Jazz,” he sighed. “You don’t have to use my name. You know I’d do anything for you.”

Jasenia’s smile widened. “Oh? But what if I’m jealous?”

“Jealous of what?”

“That fancy telekinesis of yours,” she explained. “The wizard says you’re getting _dangerous_. I bet you could move my whole body with your mind. You could manipulate me any way you wanted…”

Skel grinned back, taking a step towards her. “Perhaps I could,” he said. “Are you afraid?”

“No. Because I can move you too,” she told him, and then she commanded, “Skel Lin Del, take off all your clothes!”

The goblin was magically compelled by the use of his name. “I would have _gladly_ done that if you just asked, you know…” he said as his body jerked forward, stooping to untie his boots.

Once his clothes were lying in a pool around him, Jasenia spread her arms wide and commanded, “Skel Lin Del, come into my bed!”

Skel approached the bed, each step precise and mechanical. “You should be careful about how you phrase things,” he warned as he sat beside her. “Magic has a mind of its own. It’ll take what you say and interpret it any way it wants to.”

Jasenia laughed, “Oh! In that case: Skel Lin Del, come into me!” She tackled him down onto the mattress and the two became a giggling tangle of limbs. Jasenia felt the front buttons of her gown popping open on their own. Rather, by the power of Skel’s telekinesis. The gown loosened and lifted over her head, drifting down to the floor.

He positioned himself over her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing his body closer. Playfully she pinched his long nose and teased, “Try not to poke me in the eye this time.”

“That only happened _once_! And only because I was drunk!” exclaimed Skel. Jasenia placed her palms on either side of his face, turning his head to the side to kiss him.

Outside the door, Skel’s fellow slaves worked themselves ragged to clean the castle. Only when it was spotless were they permitted to lay their heads down on the basement floor and rest for the night. Meanwhile, the sweat on Skel’s brow was only from the love he made with the chief’s daughter, and when he tired, he fell asleep in her arms upon a comfy bed.

Skel took it all for granted, for this luxury was all he’d ever known. His childhood at Kelvingyard was only a vague memory, distant sounds and blurry sights like a dream long passed. The stars planned better things for him. He was not destined to be a slave, he reasoned, because he was better than that. He was, and always would be, _special_.

*

Skel woke the next morning alone in Jasenia’s bed. He saw little of her that day and the next. One evening, he heard her crying and rushed towards the sound. Just as he rounded the corner of the hallway, she bumped into him and he tumbled onto his back.

“Oh, Skel, I’m sorry!” she wailed, her words barely intelligible through her sobs. Tears streamed down her face like rain.

Skel shot back to his feet. He placed his hands on her shoulders and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Jasenia paused, gnashing her teeth as if in pain. She opened her mouth to reply, but the words wouldn’t come out. She let out a wail instead, shoving passed him to storm down the hall.

“Jasenia!” called Skel. He chased after her, but she soon disappeared into her bedroom and slammed the door in his face. He called again, “Jazz, please! Tell me what’s wrong!” He tried to open the door, but the handle wouldn’t turn. She had locked him out.

Skel’s stomach turned with worry. Jasenia was normally bright as a ray of sunshine, as bubbly as cider. He could count on one hand all the times he had ever heard her cry, and never had he heard such hysterical sobbing as this. He could still hear her carrying on through the door. He flinched at the crash of thrown objects and tipping furniture. “Please, Jasenia!” he begged, pressing himself helplessly against the door.

Her voice called back, “I don’t want to talk about it right now! I can’t bear it! Damn my wicked, horrible parents…!”

There was nothing more he could say, so Skel sat on the floor and waited for her to calm down. The minutes turned to hours. Skel had nearly fallen asleep with his back against the door until suddenly it opened. He fell backwards onto Jasenia’s sandaled feet.

Her eyes were swollen, her face haggard. Her usual neat, geometric hair was all askew. Skel stood up and looked in her eyes. She looked back at him, and he could tell by the look on her face that she’d burst into tears if he so much as opened his mouth. He embraced her instead.

The two attended dinner as usual, but Jasenia was in no mood to be playful. She didn’t even want to sleep with Skel after dark, so he trudged off to his own quarters further down the hall. It was a decent room with a decent bed, a far cry from the slaves’ quarters. But it would never compare to sleeping in Jasenia’s arms.

When he woke the next morning, she was nowhere to be found. She did not attend breakfast, and Skel was told she had “gone to visit a friend”. The family talked and laughed and carried on, acting as if everything was just fine as Skel was consumed by dread.

Something wasn’t right. Was he going mad? No matter who he asked, they were reluctant to give him information about Jasenia. He received vague answers that only left him with more questions.

“She’s just dramatic, the way all young elfennes are,” said her father.

“It’s just that time of the month, I’m sure. Nothing to worry about,” said her mother.

They were withholding information. Skel could hear the slight strain in their voices, saw the distracted look in their eyes. Jasenia disappeared for an entire month and Skel’s anxiety grew heavier by the day. Rumors were spreading among the other slaves, that she had gone and married some noble across the kingdom.

Skel didn’t believe them. He ignored their cruel words, and he was eager to throw those words back in their faces when Jasenia returned. _If_ she returned, he thought miserably as he lie alone in his bed. He counted each day without her.

On day thirty-two, she finally came home.

Where she had gone and what she had done, Skel didn’t even care anymore. He heard word of her return and sprinted down the hall towards her bedchamber, calling, “Jasenia! Jasenia!”

Her door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and smiled brightly when he saw her, sitting there on the edge of her bed. She did not look back at him. Her head was hung low, hands folded between her knees.

Skel’s smile faded. He quietly closed the door and approached her. “Jazz,” he began, taking a seat beside her, “I missed you so much! I was starting to think you’d never come back! W-where were you? Why didn’t you tell me you’d be leaving for so long?”

Jasenia took in a deep breath. She let it out slow, then replied sullenly, “I was in Kandul.”

“In Kandul? For what?”

After another pause, Jasenia buried her face in her hands and told him, “Daddy wants me to marry King Lutandi’s son. The wedding is next week.”

Skel’s green face flushed gray. His fingers and toes went numb and his tongue froze in place. He couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say even if he could. Jasenia wiped her tears away and sniffled, “It was only a matter of time, I guess. He married off all my older sisters, and I was next in line…”

“Jazz, y-you can’t! You can’t let him do this!” stammered Skel. “Tell him ‘no’! You’ve got to hold your ground just like you always do!”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried that?” Jasenia blurted. “It’s not even up to Daddy anyway. If we want to keep peace between Barha and Kandul, we have to meet Lutandi’s demands. Their prince wants to marry me and there is nothing I can do about it.”

Skel shook his head, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. He squeezed her hands and argued, “You can’t do that! H-how can you marry him? You’re already taken! I’m your lover, Jasenia, _me_! Your father knows that, so how could he…?”

The elfenne reached up and caressed his face. “Skelly,” she began softly, “you know how much I love you, and my family loves you too. But at the end of the day…” She winced as if her next words pained her. “I’m a princess and you’re…you’re a slave.”

A _slave_.

The word cut deep into Skel’s belly, slicing straight up through his heart. “A slave,” he repeated, his voice barely a croak. “But I—you’ve never treated me like—I thought I was…”

_Special_.

“I’m sorry,” Jasenia told him softly. But Skel would not, could not, accept such a fate.

He turned to her and said, “We’ll run away together. We’ll cross the Serkel Desert into Matuzu territory. They’ll never—”

“No. Please, listen to me,” interrupted Jasenia. “I’ve _chosen_ this for myself. I love you very much, but I love Barha and my family too. I have to do this for the good of the city and the kingdom. There’s talk of another war with Matuzu in the near future. If Yerim-Mor’s holds are busy fighting with eachother, how can they possibly defend our kingdom from the Matuzans?”

“Damn the kingdoms! Let them all destroy eachother!” exclaimed Skel, rising to his feet. “I’d crawl through the smoke and ashes for all eternity so long as you were by my side!”

Jasenia smiled, but it was not the familiar smile he knew. It was burdened by the sadness in her eyes when she said, “I can’t let it come to that. I will marry the prince of Kandul, and you will live the rest of your life in peace because of it. The family will take care of you. You’ll be the happiest goblin in the kingdom.”

Skel couldn’t believe his ears. How could she possibly expect him to be happy without her? The castle, the feasts, his comfy bed—what was the point if he couldn’t enjoy it all with the elfenne he loved? Thirty years they had played together, shared their secrets, and loved one another, and Jasenia threw it all away in a matter of seconds.

So it was true, thought Skel. He had been nothing but a lowly slave all along. Jasenia’s toy, a plaything to be thrown away when she tired of him.

A long, quiet moment passed between them. Skel broke the silence when he asked, “This is really goodbye, isn’t it?”

Jasenia’s expression strained as if she may cry again. “I’m afraid so,” she answered.

Skel slowly nodded. He made his way towards the door and opened it. “Goodbye, Jasenia,” he said, and then he disappeared into the corridor. The door clicked shut behind him. He walked down the long hall, passing other slaves who hissed and made rude remarks to him. He didn’t even hear them. There was nothing between his ears but chaos as he walked faster through the halls, jogged down the stairs, ran out the front door, and sprinted down the road in tears.

He wandered into the wild sands of the Serkel Desert. The city of Barha shrunk away behind him, becoming a distant memory with every step. Skel had no intention of going back or even looking back. The moment Jasenia announced her marriage, all of Barha crumbled to dust.

The tiny silhouette of Yerim-Mor Capital peeked over the dunes. Skel had never been there, but he knew its laws and culture were very different from Barha. Without shackles on his wrists, he was legally a free goblin if he could just make it to the capital city. His life as a Barhatian slave had come to an end.


	4. The Urchin

**[CHAPTER 4: THE URCHIN]**

_AUTUMN, 5981_

All of Yerim-Mor Kingdom was struggling since the Gold River War. But nowhere was the struggle more apparent than in the city of Chidibe.

Chidibe was a labyrinth of compact slums that sprawled across the Serkel Desert. Like a patch of cancer on Gaia’s flesh, it aggressively expanded as more and more refugees were displaced by the war.

Now a new war was blooming between the Matuzans and Morites. But Chidibe had always been a warzone in itself as its citizens fought eachother for what little resources they had.

Javaan considered himself lucky. He had made it to the ripe old age of sixteen years, and if he kept his wits about him, perhaps he could even survive to see twenty. None of his childhood friends could say the same.

Friends were always fleeting. They came into Javaan’s life for a brief time before they succumbed to disease, got arrested or murdered, or betrayed his trust and became an enemy.

Not many centaurs made it to Javaan’s age. All it took was one broken leg to put his kind in the ground, so he used his legs for all they were worth to survive. He could outrun humans, elves, satyrs, or any other species on Gaia. If nothing else, Javaan always had speed on his side.

Being a centaur had its disadvantages too. Javaan had two stomachs to fill as the whole kingdom was suffering from chronic famine. Sometimes he could catch a stray dog if he was fast enough, or pelt a bird with a rock if he was lucky enough. But he had no such luck today, so he loitered around the market plaza in search of opportunities.

The plaza was crowded and noisy with chatter. Javaan towered above the two-legged peoples around him, observing them from his carefully-chosen spot against a wall. The wall removed one possible point of attack, plus it casted a bold shadow over him in the evening sun.

Javaan blended right into the shadows, for he was a descendent of the Ebony centaurs from the Deepridge region. They were so named for their extremely dark skin and jet-black fur.

Javaan used his pigment to his advantage. He crossed his arms to minimize himself, black eyes darting rapidly between each person before him. They were a sea of dirty faces and ragged clothes. They carelessly stepped through creeks of trash and sewage to force their way to the front of the lines.

Busy market vendors rushed to serve them all. Javaan’s gaze stopped on a little human boy, probably no more than 6 years old, sidling up to a fruit vendor. The boy waited by the side of the stall for a few minutes. Javaan could tell by his shifting eyes and twitchy fingers that he was trying to steal something. He silently encouraged the boy as his little hand reached for a honeydew. But the boy got too nervous and withdrew, for there were too many eyes around him.

Javaan needed him to succeed if everything was to go according to plan. So he made a spectacle of himself and suddenly reared up on his hind equine legs, letting out a mighty roar. The crowd was startled. They turned Javaan’s way as he stamped his hooves down and yelled something about a pickpocket.

Those few seconds provided all the distraction the little boy needed to snag a fat, juicy honeydew and take off running.

_Well done_ , thought Javaan. As the crowd panicked over a pickpocket they would never find, the centaur casually followed the boy out of the plaza. He nailed scraps of fabrics to the bottoms of his hooves to muffle his footsteps—an old trick his mother taught him. He kept a fair distance from the boy, who never noticed him as he rushed through the maze of slapdash shacks.

Stealing from a vendor was risky. They were always armed, and some even hired mercenaries to guard their wares. Stealing from a defenseless orphan was much easier. Javaan knew that well, because he had been that orphan many times when he was small.

He remembered adults snatching food right out of his hands when he was too little to do anything about it. But he endured, he survived long enough to grow big, and in his mind he had earned the right to this prey.

Every street kid had a stash, a secret place where they kept all their belongings. Javaan would follow the child and see where he stashed the honeydew, then raid anything else he may be keeping in there.

A satyr vagrant then jumped out from an alley and pushed the child into the gutter. The boy shrieked and flailed in the sewage, but no one paid him any mind as the satyr ripped the honeydew from his hands and disappeared down an alley.

Javaan’s plans suddenly changed. He took off galloping in another direction, knowing he was too large to squeeze through the narrow alley. He rounded the block and saw the satyr taking off down the dusty road. The satyr hopped along on two cloven hooves. Javaan could easily catch him if he wanted, but he kept his distance instead.

He stalked the vagrant all the way to the outskirts of the city. As the slums thinned out, it became harder and harder for Javaan to hide. The centaur stopped in the shadow of a building, where he had a clear view of the desert ahead.

He watched the satyr disappear over a dune for nearly a half-hour. Javaan waited patiently until he returned. The satyr skulked off back into the slums with empty hands, having deposited his prize somewhere in the wilds.

Javaan didn’t know its exact location, but as a veteran urchin with many stashes of his own, he knew what clues to look for. He galloped into the desert and over the great dune, kicking up thick plumes of dust in his wake. From the top of the dune, he saw the remnants of a short, dead tree twisting out from a sea of sand. Some clumps of dry grass sprouted around it.

The centaur approached the tree and searched it for holes, finding none. He checked its branches, found nothing. He even picked through the clumps of grass to no avail. Then he noticed cloven hoofprints in the sand. The prints passed the tree and stopped about a hundred paces away to an innocuous boulder.

Javaan hooked his front leg around the boulder and pulled it aside. Sure enough, he revealed a hole with all kinds of goodies inside, including the honeydew.

Greedily he grabbed it all and shoved it into his rucksack. He emptied the stash of a half-full canteen of water, a small sack of beans, a book of matches, a torn cotton shirt, and a can of creamed corn before turning to leave. He could breathe a sigh of relief, for his two stomachs were sated for another day.

Or perhaps not. Javaan froze half-way up the dune, for he saw two hulking figures staring down at him from the top. He tossed his long, matted locks out of his eyes and shielded his brow from the sun. The figures’ postures were hunched over like the gorillas in the Midland Jungle, and they were just about the same size too.

He was face-to-face with a couple of trolls, Javaan realized, and that was never a good thing for a Chidibean centaur.

“Well, well! Look who we found! Told you we’d come back for you, kid!” one of the trolls cackled.

Javaan had nothing on his person but a ragged shirt, the rucksack on his shoulder, and a sheathed machete on his humanoid hip. He whipped out the machete and brandished its rusty blade at the trolls, bellowing, “You reeking piles of shit have five seconds to get out of my sight, or I’ll do to you what you did to my mother! Now piss off if you know what’s good for you!”

The trolls exchanged a few mumbled words with one another. Then one of them raised his massive, clawed hands and sprinted down the dune towards Javaan. The centaur’s hearts skipped a beat. A feeling of dread washed through his veins when he imagined being tackled by the quarter-ton behemoth. The troll would dig in with his claws and trap him in a death-roll down the steep hill, much like a crocodile mangling its prey.

He’d seen it happen before.

There was no way he’d come out of that with all his legs in-tact, so quick as a flash, Javaan reared up and turned tail. He kicked a wave of earth into the troll’s face before running back towards the tree. The troll cried out in anger as his mouth and eyes were filled with sand. He lost his balance and tumbled forward down the hill.

Javaan ran towards him with his machete raised, turning the blade downward before stabbing down. He aimed for the head, but missed by inches and stabbed the troll’s shoulder instead. With a furious roar, the troll swiped at Javaan with his claws.

He narrowly missed when Javaan jumped backwards. The machete was still stuck in his shoulder and now the centaur was unarmed. Javaan had no choice but to flee. Just as he turned to do so, something tripped him and he collapsed into the dirt.

Javaan rolled onto his back and found his hind legs stuck together, tangled in the strings of a makeshift throwing bolas. They were thrown by the troll at the top of the dune, who was now slowly lumbering down to finish off his prey.

The other troll pulled the machete out of his shoulder with a pained grunt. Blood was gushing from his wound, but that didn’t stop him from pursuing Javaan. Javaan frantically kicked his legs, trying desperately to disentangle himself.

The trolls were getting closer. Javaan’s blood ran hot with rage at the sight of them. Unarmed with his hind legs disabled, he had no choice but to reach into his rucksack and use the first thing he grabbed as a weapon. The heavy honeydew exploded against the injured troll’s face. He stumbled backwards and swiped at the juice stinging his eyes, machete falling to the ground.

Javaan wriggled his way over the machete, wary of the second troll approaching from the hill with a wooden club raised. Iron nails were sticking out of it in all directions. Javaan spared a second to kick the injured troll’s knees with his bound hooves. He heard a grotesque crack and saw one knee bend the opposite direction. The troll collapsed with a roar, and Javaan had just enough time to swipe the machete and chop through his binds before his friend arrived.

The second troll tried to bring his club down on Javaan’s head. Javaan swiped his machete forth and it chopped deeply into the club, stopping it mid-swing. He twisted the blade at a sharp angle, then tossed his machete as far as he could throw it.

The club sailed off with it, leaving both he and the troll disarmed. The troll was also pushed off-balance when the club was wrenched from his grip, and in that precious second, Javaan managed to rise to his hooves.

He bolted back up the dune. One troll laid in the dirt, wailing over his destroyed knee. The other gave a half-hearted chase and shouted curses at Javaan, but they both knew the centaur had come out victorious. Such a clumsy, short-legged creature could never dream of catching him as he swiftly sped across the desert.

Within minutes, he was back in the slums of Chidibe. He vanished into the shadowy alley he was calling home that week, settled into the soft sand, and broke the can of creamed corn open with a rock.

He guzzled its contents down cold. He swiped every last ridge of the can clean with his finger and licked it off, regretting the loss of the honeydew more by the second. His two stomachs would not be sated tonight after all.

*

Javaan had survived another week. He heard barking in the distance and knew he had to act quickly if he wanted to survive another.

He stalked a dog through the slums for the better part of an hour. It was a scrawny thing, tan in color with upright ears. There almost wasn’t enough meat on its bones to be worth the trouble. But dogs had powerful noses, and sometimes they would lead Javaan to another source of food.

The dog stopped and sniffed at a pile of lumber for a long moment. _Jackpot_ , thought Javaan. Then his confidence deflated when the dog simply urinated on the pile and moved on.

He followed the animal for three more blocks until it stopped again, this time in front of a shack. It whimpered and scratched at the makeshift door. A human man opened the door from the other side, patted the dog on the head, and let it in.

Javaan’s frustration escaped in a growl. Though he much preferred chasing opportunities over waiting for them, he already wasted enough calories on failed ventures today. He decided to try his luck loitering around the market.

It was chaos as usual, with hungry customers forming disorganized mobs in front of vendor stalls. Javaan took his usual place against the wall and scanned for thieves. He knew the shifty eyes of an inexperienced thief when he saw one, and the burly satyr creeping towards the liquor stall fit the bill.

Javaan smiled a little, shaking his head. The satyr was nude from head to toe like most of his kind, his dark flesh carpeted with wiry red hair. Shaggy fur covered his goat-like legs, and his horns curved up to cross eachother in a heart shape. He seemed like a foreigner, thought Javaan. Perhaps Matuzan.

Javaan saw an armored troll lumbering through the crowd—a soldier in the Chidibe Guard. These guards were far and few between, but if they were to be found anywhere, it was always the market.

The satyr was careless. He didn’t even see the guard when he reached for a bottle of palm wine, but the guard certainly saw him. Before the satyr could run three paces, the guard roared at him and charged through the crowd.

A panic swelled and the crowd undulated as it parted for the troll. The satyr slipped in a creek of sewage and fell on his face. The bottle of wine shattered. Before he could get up, the troll was already upon him, lifting him into the air by one of his horns.

“You’re under arrest for the crime of theft!” the troll bellowed. “Was it worth a day in the stockades, you lowlife?”

The satyr kicked and flailed in his grip, stammering desperate excuses that fell on deaf ears. An instant later, both he and the troll hit the ground.

Javaan charged his entire half-ton of weight right into the guard’s back, sending him toppling face-first into the sewage creek. He lost his grip on the thief as he wiped the reeking muck from his eyes. By the time he opened them, the thief and Javaan had disappeared into the labyrinth of slums.

Javaan galloped through the streets with the satyr on his equine back. The satyr clung tightly to his humanoid torso until he came to a stop in a quiet alley. He cautiously dismounted, panting, “Bless you, friend. Gods must have sent you. Yeah, for me. Wasn’t my time. Not yet.”

“Right, right,” said Javaan. He extended his open palm to the thief. “I protected you, but I don’t work free. I want that wine.”

The satyr’s jaw fell slack, eyes rounding up at the hulking centaur. “Don’t have it, friend,” he said. He yelped as his back hit the dirt, gnashing his teeth in pain, for the centaur quickly had him pinned under his hoof.

“Don’t mess with me! Give me the wine or I’ll crush you and take it!” growled Javaan.

The satyr opened his palms and waved them about. “It’s the truth! I don’t have it! Where you think I’m hiding it, in my ass?” he barked.

Javaan looked him up and down. A leather pouch was slung around his torso on a strap, but upon closer inspection, it was too small to hide the wine.

“I dropped it! Nobody gets it! Not you, not me!” he continued. His expression eased when Javaan lifted his hoof off his chest. With a defeated sigh, Javaan extended his hand again, this time to help him back to his feet.

“Thanks, thanks,” said the satyr, brushing the dust off his fur. “You’re real big. Thought I was big. Not anymore. You’re a scary fellow. Hey, what’s your name?”

“I’m, uh…Javaan,” the centaur answered. He furrowed his brow slightly, trying to pin the stranger’s accent. There was certainly a Midland twang to it, but it was mixed with another dialect he couldn’t identify.

“Javaan,” the satyr repeated, testing the name on his tongue. He nodded to himself and went on, “Javaan, Javaan. Yeah. I like it! Call me Buster. Everyone does. They did, I mean. ‘Cause I bust skulls. I did, I mean. Not anymore.”

“Right,” Javaan replied slowly. The satyr was strange, hard to read. There were a number of hard drugs passing through the slums that caused people to behave strangely, but he didn’t have the bloodshot, unfocused eyes or the twitchy demeanor of an addict.

Javaan could see the gray strands in his hair now, and that told him he was definitely not native to Chidibe. Chidibeans didn’t live long enough to turn gray.

Javaan continued, “Where are you from, Buster? You can’t be from around here. You’re the worst thief I’ve ever seen! You’re old enough to be my father, yet you steal like a toddler.”

The satyr let out a ragged laugh, exposing a few missing teeth. He shocked the air with a loud clap and replied, “Yeah! I always get caught! Every time, almost. I came all the way from the savannah. Stole a horse, then a camel. Robbed a carriage. Took weeks to get here! Supplies are gone, got stolen from me. Now I steal. That’s the way it is.”

“The Midland Savannah?” queried Javaan. “So you’re Matuzan. You know, people are usually trying to get _out_ of Yerim-Mor Kingdom, not into it…”

Buster waved his hands and explained, “No, no, not Matuzan. I wish! Mam shat me out in the savannah, real far away from folks. I don’t have papers. Matuzu doesn’t know me. They do now, I mean. I had to leave. Can’t go back to Matuzan land.”

“Why? You got in trouble, huh?” asked Javaan.

“Yeah. Yeah, big trouble.” Buster nodded. “I came to Kelloru ‘cause I heard of the wine. Big city. Real good wine. Real pretty women too. But they got me in trouble. The women, I mean. They scream real loud, louder than men.”

“You killed someone,” Javaan said flatly. That was always the story with these Matuzan migrants, it seemed.

“No, I didn’t kill her!” Buster assured him. He paused for a moment, then swiped at his neck as he continued, “She was a noble’s niece. Didn’t know it, or I wouldn’t have done it. I hurt her, didn’t mean to. Didn’t even kill her, but Matuzu wants my head. Just wanted a pretty bride. Folks hate gaians, won’t let us have anything. Especially satyrs. Folks hate us most.”

Javaan fell silent for a moment, piecing the stranger’s broken words together. From what he could gather, he was a feral satyr who spent most of his life in the wilderness. He had some bad luck in the city, typical of his kind, and may or may not have assaulted a noble’s niece.

Was he dangerous? Probably. But Javaan was big now, and he was sure he could defend himself from whatever Buster threw at him if things turned sour.

For the moment, he looked at Buster and saw nothing but opportunities.

“They sure do,” agreed Javaan. “We gaians are treated like mongrel shit, even here in Chidibe. I can’t get a bride either. All the women are afraid of me.”

“Ha! Well, yeah. I’m a big bull and I’m afraid of you too,” teased Buster, slapping Javaan on his equine shoulder. “You could have killed me. Decided not to. Must be a nice person.”

Javaan smiled. “I’m a really nice guy, so long as you stay on my good side. But if you cross me, I won’t think twice about killing you. I’d never kill a friend. Do you want to be my friend, Buster?”

The satyr smiled back and nodded. “Yeah. Let’s be friends. Friends work together, help eachother.” The two exchanged a firm handshake.

Then Javaan said, “Right. I helped you, now you help me. I know how to get women the right way, but I need you to do exactly what I say or it won’t work. Understand?”

Buster nodded again, messy red locks bouncing against his forehead. “Yeah, whatever you say! I’ll do it! Let’s find pretty women!”

“No,” said Javaan. “Let’s find _rich_ women.”

*

Javaan had run this scheme before with varying degrees of success. The scheme required a partner, and sometimes partners could be a liability. But Buster was a large, burly individual. Javaan was sure he could pull off what he’d asked of him, and if they were lucky, they’d eat well tonight.

It was starting to get dark. Vendors were closing up shop as fatigued citizens headed back to their shacks for the night. Buster lurked in the shadows of a secluded alley. He peeked out every so often, then retreated out of sight. He saw a satyress approaching, but he also spotted a long knife sheathed at her hip, so he let her pass by.

He waited a few minutes more. Then he grinned as he saw his victim approaching. She was a human perhaps in her early twenties, wearing decent clothing and a large, tattered bow in her curly hair.

Buster flattened himself against the wall in the darkness. His goat-ears twitched with her every footstep as she neared. The moment she came into view, he struck like a viper and yanked her into the alley by her hair.

She tried to scream, but Buster slapped his large palm over her mouth in an instant. She wriggled and writhed in his grip. She tried to stamp her heels onto his toes, only to realize they were hard, cloven hooves. Buster wrestled the woman down into the dirt, struggling to keep her quiet until finally, his partner in crime arrived.

Javaan came galloping into the alley, snatching Buster by the horn as he passed. Buster released the woman and she sat upright, watching the scene through wide eyes. She watched Buster curse and swing at Javaan, only to get thrown into the street.

“Get out of here, you rat! I better not see your face again!” growled the centaur. Buster lobbed more curses at him before staggering away, disappearing around the side of the building.

Turning to face the victim, Javaan said to her, “I saw him pull you into the alley. What scum he was! He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

The woman brushed the dirt off her simple dress as she panted, “Um, no. I think I’m okay. Gods, but who knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up? Thank you so much, sir.”

“Of course. These are _my_ streets, you know. I run this neighborhood,” said Javaan.

“Do you now?” The woman’s voice was flat with doubt.

Javaan nodded. “Yep, I protect my neighbors. Some of them even pay me for it.”

“Well, good for you.” The woman straightened her bow, then began walking back to the street. “I’m going to keep a sharper eye out from now on. Thanks again for saving me.”

Suddenly a black equine body blocked her path, stretching across the entire length of the alley. Javaan stood before her, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “You don’t seem very grateful,” he said.

“What? What do you want? I said ‘thank you’!” exclaimed the woman. She gave him a shove, but he didn’t budge. “Let me go home! My feet hurt and my kids are waiting for me!”

Javaan held out his palm and said, “I saved your life, woman. I think I deserve some kind of reward, don’t you?”

She stared at him for a moment, then the woman tossed up her hands and groaned, “Oh, for gods’ sakes! Do I look like I have money?”

“It doesn’t have to be money, but you owe me _something_ ,” insisted Javaan. He looked her up and down, but saw no jewelry or even a bag on her person.

“I don’t _have_ anything, you big jackass!” she told him, anger rising in her voice. “I couldn’t even find food for my kids today! And even if I did, I’d die before I gave it to you!”

“Don’t let her leave! Not ‘til she gives something! She can give a suckjob, at least!” called a familiar voice. Javaan whipped his gaze around and saw none other than Buster, peeking around the corner.

“Buster, what did I tell you? Get out of here!” growled Javaan.

Fed up with their scam, the woman ducked through Javaan’s legs and stormed out into the street. She kicked Buster in the groin as she passed. He collapsed in a groaning heap of sweat and vomit.

“I’m calling the damned Guard! This is ridiculous!” she hollered, and then she faded away into the crowd. With that, Javaan and Buster’s scheme came to an end.

They quickly retreated into the furthest depths of the labyrinth, all the way back to their obscure hiding spot of the week. It was the collapsed remnants of a barn, but the farmland had been consumed by slums long ago. Now random vagrants took up residence in its many nooks and crannies, and Javaan and Buster were among them.

They “rescued” a total of eight women from sunup to sundown. They received a copper ring, two silver coins, five ‘thank you’s, and a kick in the groin for their efforts. They would have been better off chasing rats or looking for thief caches, Javaan thought miserably.

“Every year, there is less and less to go around,” mumbled Javaan. He was sprawled on the ground inside the remains of the barn, Buster curled up against his equine belly to leech off his warmth. He continued, “There used to be some gold in Chidibe, at least a little bit. Now there’s nothing. No one has anything at all.”

“No rich women…” yawned Buster.

Javaan shook his head. “Used to be that you rescued ten damsels and eight of them would give you some gold, or at least invite you in for a meal or something. This city is growing bigger, but I don’t understand how when everyone is dying.”

With a long sigh, he rested his face on his dusty arms and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to die here. We have to find a way to get out…” His words trailed off into oblivion as sleep claimed him for the night.

*

“Javaan! Wake up! Wake up, quick!”

The centaur’s eyes snapped open. He jolted upright, scrambling to his hooves. Blinking the blur from his eyes, he saw Buster standing before him, wearing an ear-to-ear grin on his face. The satyr was out of breath as he gasped excitedly, “We gotta get to the market! We gotta go now! Military’s over there, taking anyone!”

Javaan’s groggy brain was still trying to make sense of his words. “I don’t…what…?” he croaked.

Buster grabbed his hand and began tugging him along, exclaiming, “Just come on! Come see!”

The two made their way through the barren streets, which were normally bustling at this early hour. They understood why when they arrived at the market plaza. The crowd was louder and more dense than Javaan had ever seen it.

If Javaan weren’t so tall, he would have never seen the new booths erected in the center of the plaza, for each of them were swamped with shouting, smiling, eager peasants.

Each booth was tended by a Yerim-Mor soldier, looking proud in their leather armor and green motifs. Each soldier was frantically handing out papers to any dirty, desperate hand that managed to grab one, whether they were young and healthy or old and wrinkled.

“They’re really taking anyone? What’s going on here?” asked Javaan.

Sitting on his back, Buster replied, “Gonna be a war with Matuzu. I mean, that’s what I heard. Kingdom needs soldiers. Needs them fast, right now. Any male, age sixteen and up. That’s what I heard.”

Javaan quirked his brow. “So? Why do you think we should join—you want revenge on Matuzu or something?”

“No! I asked the guy, he said everyone gets papers if they join! I can get papers! I’ll be a Morite, own some land!” exclaimed Buster. He clapped Javaan on the shoulder and gave him a shake. “And guess what? Weekly rations! Gold, food, weapons! Free! No more hunting, no more stealing! Ever!”

Javaan’s jaw slacked when the realization hit him. Under normal circumstances, Yerim-Mor Kingdom only accepted legal citizens into its military, and only those at least eighteen years old. These were dire times indeed. But in these dire circumstances, all Javaan saw were opportunities.

“Hold on tight,” said the centaur, and Buster grabbed his long hair as he charged to the front of the crowd. With his big equine body, he forcefully parted the mob until he reached one of the recruitment booths.

He held his palm out to the soldier and told him, “I want to enlist.”


	5. The Squad

**[CHAPTER 5: THE SQUAD]**

_WINTER, 5982_

Balthazaar’s superiors assured him that he would be issued one mighty steed to carry him to his objective. What he really got was a sickly old camel that could barely stand on its own feet, much less haul a passenger and his cargo.

The camel collapsed and died half-way to the outpost. Balthazaar expected as much. He had no choice but to leave some of his supplies behind and carry what he could on his back. He trekked across the dry, unforgiving Serkel Desert for several hours until he saw his destination: a tall, rectangular stone tower jutting up from the horizon.

Was it a mirage? There was only one way to find out, Balthazaar supposed, and pushed on through the last arduous steps of his journey. His armor was made of cloth and camel leather with tattered green motifs. A cloth headscarf covered his head, but all it could protect him from was the blistering sun. His gear was issued to him over a year ago, and despite how ragged it had become, his superiors refused to replace it.

Just like they probably weren’t going to replace his camel, Balthazaar thought miserably. He tried not to think about the journey back to base as he approached the front door of the tower. It was a solid structure made of stone blocks. Their seams were fading, worn smooth by decades of sand exposure. He knocked on the wooden door, reinforced by metal bars.

A green goblin face peeked out from a window. It called, “State your name and business!”

“ _Azappa_ Balthazaar Valentino, reporting for duty!” Balthazaar replied.

“Gods, it’s about time!” exclaimed the goblin, who then disappeared back into the tower. Just a moment later, the door opened and Balthazaar stepped inside.

The interior was as basic as could be, with only the bare minimum to shelter a group of three. Balthazaar would call this place home for the next week at least, so he began unpacking his supplies.

As he did, the goblin introduced himself, “ _Azappa_ Skel. Glad you’re here, but what took so long? The other guy is late too! I’ve been sitting alone in this place since sunrise, thinking the enemy got you and wondering if I’m next!”

“My steed died on the way here,” Balthazaar grumbled. “About fifteen kilos of supplies are currently sitting out in the desert, probably getting dragged off by animals.”

Skel rolled his eyes and said, “As if rations weren’t pitiful enough already…”

“We’ll make it work,” grunted Balthazaar, hefting a heavy bag onto a shelf. “As long as the next guy isn’t a centaur or something, we’ll still have enough food to get by.”

In that instant, there was another knock on the door, followed by a booming voice. “ _Azappa_ Javaan, reporting for duty!” it called. Skel and Balthazaar exchanged glances. Balthazaar shrugged, sweeping his hand towards the door. Skel approached it and peeked through the thin slot in the wood. Then he doubled over and let out a loud, sardonic laugh.

Turning back to Balthazaar, he said, “You’re _not_ going to believe this…”

*

Though it never snowed in the Serkel Desert, winter nights grew cold nonetheless. Balthazaar, Skel, and Javaan wrapped themselves in fur blankets and huddled around the fire pit. The pit was on the first floor of the tower, the smoke rising up through the holes in the two floors above until it drifted out the chimney.

“You know,” began Balthazaar, giving Skel a nudge, “I’ve been in the service for about a year now and you’re the first goblin soldier I’ve ever met. I admit, I’m very curious to see you on the battlefield.”

Skel sighed, “Yes, well, most of my people are too busy slaving away for nobles to slave away for the military. I, for one, grew weary of my masters and left their court. I’d rather fight a thousand bloody battles than see their faces again.”

“What do you mean you ‘left’?” queried Javaan. “You mean you just…quit being a slave?”

With a shrug, the goblin replied, “Yes, I did. I grew tired of it.”

The others shared an amused chuckle, then Skel continued, “My masters bought me from an Evangelite slave yard when I was barely old enough to walk. I spent most of my life in Barha, serving the chief and his family. I thought they treated me well, but…”

His expression contorted with disgust. “From the outside looking in, I realize I was nothing special. Just another hob to be used and discarded. Once I realized that, I jumped on a trade cart and made my way to Yerim-Mor Capital for a new life.”

“Ah, the capital. I heard slavery was abolished there a while back,” noted Balthazaar.

Skel nodded and said, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I was treated fairly. Or even kindly. The ire for my kind runs deep through this wretched kingdom, so I spent some time as a beggar until the Great Call to Arms.”

“You joined during The Call?” blurted Javaan, brows arching high. “Hey, so did I!”

Balthazaar added, “That makes three of us! Why did you join, Javaan?”

“It only made sense. I’ve been a fighter my whole life,” Javaan began. “When I was five years old, a couple of worthless trolls attacked my mother. Killed and ate her right in front of me, and you know what they said?” He dropped his voice, low and gruff. “ _You’re even not worth the energy, kid. We’ll come back for you when you’re as fat as your_ mother’.”

Skel and Balthazaar winced. The pain was visible in Javaan’s eyes, but he kept his voice strong and steady when he finished, “I’ve been on my own ever since. I couldn’t stay in a a place like Chidibe, where there’s so little food that folks eat other folks and there’s nothing but days of desert on all sides. The military was my only way out.”

“Gods…” mumbled Skel.

“That’s a rough story, friend. I can’t imagine,” agreed Balthazaar. “And here we were just an hour ago, complaining about eating gruel…”

A brief silence passed between the trio. Then Javaan turned to Balthazaar and asked, “So, what’s your story? I knew a guy with an accent kind of like yours. You’re Matuzan, aren’t you?”

Balthazaar hesitated. “Er, yeah. I _was_ ,” he replied. He cleared his throat, fingering his overgrown black beard as he went on, “I’m a Morite now. I earned my citizenship from The Call.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that you’re at war with your own people?” asked Skel.

“Of course it does!” barked Balthazaar. “I’m just in no position to do anything about it. I have a Morite wife to look after now.”

Skel told him, “But if she married you, a native Matuzan, then that grants her dual citizenship, does it not? Why not take her back to the motherland? I’d have abandoned this cesspit of a kingdom the moment the wedding ended, if I were you!”

“It’s not that simple,” sighed Balthazaar. “I, uh…I can’t go back, with or without her. My relationship with the orange kingdom is _strained_ at the moment.”

“You killed someone, didn’t you?” Javaan guessed flatly.

Balthazaar was quick to correct him, “No, I didn’t kill anyone!” He paused, then added sheepishly, “But, um…I almost did. I had a few too many drinks at the tavern one night. Got into a fistfight with a Matuzan soldier, and I guess I hit him a little too hard. I threw a punch like this…”

He pressed his fist against the side of his shaven head to demonstrate. “…and the guy went rigid like he turned to stone! A few days go by and a few of his military buddies showed up at my house. They told me his career was over. He couldn’t see at all, could barely walk or talk…”

Scrubbing a hand over his weary face, Balthazaar continued, “The man deserved a good haymaker, sure. But gods, I didn’t mean to _cripple_ him! Word started spreading through the base in Rodanga, and before I knew it, I was getting jumped every time I left my house. If I went back now, I have no doubt they’d kill me. So I fled the kingdom and now here I am, fighting a war against the same men I was running from. A bit strange, huh?”

Skel and Javaan glanced at eachother, stricken silent for a second or two. Skel then cleared his throat and said, “It was his own fault, really. If he didn’t want to be crippled, perhaps he shouldn’t have signed up for the military. He knew what he was getting into! If not by your hand, then by the hand of some Etios brute to the south. He had it coming either way, if you ask me.”

“What about us?” asked Javaan. “It doesn’t take much to cripple a centaur. One leg snaps and we’re down for life. I’d rather be dead than blind and helpless!”

“If it comes to that, I promise we’ll put you out of your misery,” Balthazaar told him. “But it sounds like all three of us waded through a deep sea of shit to get where we are now. If we can survive all that, we can survive anything this war throws at us.”

A toothy smile spread across Javaan’s face. “Yes. You’re right,” he said. “We’re survivors! If all of Chidibe couldn’t kill me, why am I worrying about some toothless caravan robbers? Think of all the loot they must have in their stash! Wagons and wagons worth!”

Skel raised a hairless brow and asked, “Stash? What are you talking about?”

“We were sent here to guard the road from bandits, right?” began Javaan. “Wherever there’s bandits, there’s goodies. They keep all their stuff hidden until they can use it or hock it for coin. So with all the robberies on this road, there has to be a fat stash somewhere nearby.”

“What are you suggesting here?” queried Balthazaar.

Javaan explained, “I’m saying we should look for their hideout! Find out where these thugs are coming from and take their treasure for ourselves. The roads get safer and we get richer! Everyone wins!”

Pulling a slip of tattered paper from his pocket, Balthazaar looked it over for a moment and reported, “Hm…The mission briefing doesn’t say anything about raiding hideouts. Says here we’re to ‘ _stay at the outpost for the duration of the mission to discourage illegal activities’_.”

“Who cares what the briefing says?” snapped Javaan. “If our superiors didn’t want us to break the rules, they should have thought of that before they sent us to this godforsaken post with tattered armor, a half-dead steed, and barely enough food to feed three kids, much less us!”

Balthazaar shot the centaur a doubtful look, but Skel agreed, “Yes, that’s what I was saying! We can’t be expected to survive a week out here, that’s ridiculous!”

“Guys, come on,” said Balthazaar. “There’s no need to get anxious. We’ll be okay if we just cut our rations down.”

“Says the man with one stomach…” grumbled Javaan.

Skel added, “Yes, I’m tired of cutting rations! We’re eating crumbs as it is! Why shouldn’t we eat like kings if we have the opportunity?” He gestured towards Javaan. “I don’t know about you fellows, but I’m not going to wait until we’re chewing eachothers’ limbs off at the end of the week! If it can happen in Chidibe, it can happen in this tower!”

A long groan of defeat rumbled from Balthazaar. After a moment of contemplation, he tossed the briefing into the fire. The paper curled and blackened before him as he said, “Alright. But if something goes wrong, I take no responsibility! I’ll march right back to this post, write our superiors and tell them you were eaten by a roc.”

Javaan grinned. “Beats being eaten by a person.”

*

Linde’s parents were right. They were right all along and she’d been an arrogant fool, she realized. Now it was far too late for apologies as they lie dead on the other side of the continent.

Today Linde found herself shackled to a wall in a crumbling desert outpost. The iron shackles irritated her wrists like the prickling needles of a cactus, but after so many weeks she was starting to become numb to the feeling.

All hope of escape was fading away. Even if she did manage to slip out of the shackles, there was nothing but an ocean of hot, barren dunes all around her. Her captors travelled by cart in a group of six. They smuggled her out of Zhoulcha, across the Midland Savannah and into the Serkel Desert.

These were not the same men as her kidnappers. She’d been passed off several times to different traffickers, and she knew she’d be passed off yet again when they reached the Noso Peninsula.

That would be her next opportunity to escape, Linde decided. If she couldn’t slip away from these slavers by then, it would be too late. Evangeline Kingdom’s border was the point of no return, where fae arrived in shackles and died as property.

She heard all the stories. Her parents told her over and over again that this could happen. She didn’t heed their warnings and now she was finally paying the price.

The captors meandered around the tower, strapping on their armor and sharpening their weapons. Linde watched them through the narrow slit in her veil, an opaque garment that both concealed her identity and protected her white skin from the sun.

The slavers covered her head-to-toe in thin, cloth garb that was typical of the region. Every inch of her was hidden away except her pink eyes. She was huddled on the second floor of the outpost, looking over the loft at the men below.

As the others prepared for their excursion, one of the slavers climbed the ladder and approached Linde with a canteen in his hand. He was a satyr like the rest of them, all except for their leader, who was a massive, lumbering ogre. Linde didn’t bother learning their names. These men weren’t worth her time and energy.

The satyr’s cloven hooves _clack-clack-clacked_ on the stone floor as he approached. He kneeled in front of Linde and waggled the canteen. “Getting thirsty, love?” he asked.

Linde regarded him with a hard, piercing stare and cold silence. She learned early on that whatever she said to these cretins would only backfire on her. The satyr looked her over and continued, “You must be. I don’t see no more tears in your eyes.” He lifted the bottom of her veil, exposing her dry, cracked lips. A smile spread across his own and he said, “Open your mouth and I’ll give you a drink.”

Linde knew better. She remained silent, glaring through his eyes and into his tainted soul. “Come on, love. I’m a nice guy,” he told her, then uncorked his canteen and took a swig himself. “It ain’t poison, see? Part those pretty lips for me.”

The satyr recoiled when Linde spit directly into his eye. He flailed, half of the alcohol in his canteen splashing onto the floor, and then he struck her across the face. “Nasty little bitch!” he snarled, seizing her by the neck. “Better learn some fuckin’ manners or—”

Linde winced, bracing herself for another slap. But a shadow loomed over the satyr, and then he was lifted off his hooves. His superior, the great ogre, picked him up by the throat and launched him over the ride of the loft. The other slavers shouted and laughed as he crashed onto the wooden table below, cracking it in two.

The ogre’s voice was like rolling thunder when he growled, “You animals keep beating on this girl, and there won’t be nothing left of her by the time we get to the next checkpoint! How many times do I have to tell you to keep your filthy hands to yourselves?”

He swept his clawed finger around the room below, pointing to each of his underlings. His hands were armored by heavy steel gauntlets with spikes shoddily welded to the knuckles. “If I see one more bruise on this bitch, I’m gonna tie each of you up and throw you to the rocs! Damaged goods means docked pay, you morons! I won’t tell you again!”

With that, he slipped a leather helmet over his head and rumbled, “That trade cart will be rolling through soon. Let’s get out to the main road, sack it, and get back here as soon as possible. You three,” he pointed to three of his underlings, “stay here and guard the girl.”

“Guard her? Heh, from _what_?” chuckled one of the satyrs.

Another chimed in, “Ain’t no Guard way out here, Chief. That’s crazy. Let us come raid the road with you. I’m dying of boredom in here!”

The ogre’s lip curled into a snarl. His long tusks were yellowed, one of them broken off at half its length. “Stop flapping your gums and do as I say, or you’ll all be eating my fists,” he told them slowly, his yellow eyes meeting each of their own. He leapt down from the loft. His bulk quaked the entire outpost when he landed.

The satyrs quickly lost their resolve. The chosen three sheathed their weapons and stayed behind as the ogre left the tower, accompanied by two of his men. The sun was just starting to rise, which meant caravans had already left the cities hours ago. It was just too hot to travel in the afternoon, so travelers rushed down the nearby road day after day to reach their next destination before high sun.

These slavers didn’t just deal in slave trafficking, Linde discovered. They were bandits first and foremost. They raided merchant’s carts and demanded tolls for safe passage to sustain them as they moved up and down the desert. Supposedly someone up north was in the market for a rare elfenne like Linde, and they were willing to pay these thugs a fat chunk of gold for her.

Linde heard someone climbing up the ladder to the loft. A satyr appeared before her with a bowl of hardtack biscuits and shriveled dates. He picked up a biscuit and held it to her lips, but just as Linde tried to take a bite, he snatched it away. “Uh-uh! No one eats for free on my watch, girlie,” he said. His smile made her skin crawl.

Glaring at him through the gap in her veil, Linde snapped back, “What’s ‘free’ about it? The price is my _life_ , you degenerate! The chief told you to look after me, now do your damn job and feed me!”

“Chief ain’t here, is he?” the satyr hissed, tossing the plate aside. Biscuits and dates spilled across the floor. Linde shrieked as he stood up and seized her hair through her veil. “I’ll feed you alright! I’ll stuff that little mouth ‘til you gag, hob! Teach you to get smart with me—”

Linde squirmed in his grip, then both she and the satyr froze when something heavy slammed against the door. The satyr rushed to the edge of the loft, looking down at his two cohorts. They looked equally alarmed, facing the door with their makeshift weapons drawn.

The door rattled with another loud bang, making them all flinch. The impact left it slightly askew on its hinges.

The bandits on the first floor looked at one another, then one of them called, “Chief? That you?”

They awaited an answer, but it never came. Instead, the door swung open with a boom against the stone wall. The bandits stepped back in surprise when they saw not their chief, but a horse’s black behind staring back at them.

The horse turned around and revealed himself to be a centaur. An instant later, he was charging them with a mighty battle cry and two machetes raised high.

The bandits scattered in a flurry of shouts. The centaur swung at one of them and missed by inches. His blade stuck into the broken wooden table as the bandits fled for the doorway. Two other invaders stood in their path: a human and a goblin, both wearing the tattered green sashes of Yerim-Mor soldiers.

The goblin stretched his hands out before him. A pulse of telekinetic energy shot forth, knocking the bandits on their backs. The human soldier then barreled through the doorway and trapped one of them in a chokehold, calling, “Javaan, a little help!”

The room was cramped to begin with, but all the trash and broken furniture made it even more difficult for the centaur to navigate. He clumsily oriented himself towards his foes, and before the second bandit could club the human with his steel mace, Javaan dropped all his equine weight on top of him.

The satyr went down with a howl, bones crackling like a campfire. Before long, the human soldier managed to choke out the first bandit. The satyr’s eyes rolled back into his head, his wooden shiv clattered on the floor, and then he fell onto his blue face.

The two bandits were subdued, but one still remained. “Up there!” called the goblin, pointing to the third satyr peeking over the railing. The bandit jumped in surprise, then disappeared further into the loft.

The human soldier began climbing the ladder. About halfway to the top, the satyr reappeared with a wooden bucket in his hands. He tossed its sludgy contents over the soldier and shouted, “Eat shit, you Morite bastards! You’ll never take me alive!”

The human slipped off the ladder and hit the floor in a coughing, sputtering heap. His face and arms were coated with filth, stinging his eyes. “Are you alright, Balthazaar?” called the goblin. He hurried forward to help his friend, then suddenly stopped an arm’s length away. He recoiled and pinched his long nose in disgust.

“Don’t worry about me,” sputtered Balthazaar. He pointed towards the loft and growled, “Just get that son of a bitch!”

Javaan looked at the rickety ladder, then at the goblin. “Yeah, Skel. Get up there and show him what for,” he said.

The goblin quickly shook his head and replied, “Are you kidding? Who knows how many more buckets of filth he has up there?”

“Oh, for gods’ sakes…!” grumbled Balthazaar. He swiped the sludge from his eyes and rose to his feet. One bandit lie unconscious before him. The other writhed helplessly with broken limbs before pain stole his consciousness as well.

Skel gestured to them and suggested, “Perhaps we can use those two to negotiate something.”

“You mean take hostages?” queried Javaan.

“Well, if it’ll keep shit out of my eyes…”

“Help me! Please, help me!” called a voice from above, very different from the bandits’. It was high and feminine, the voice of a young woman. She sounded nearly in tears as she told them, “Save me from these horrible monsters, I beg you! He’s gone, he just jumped out the window! Come save me, please!”

The trio of soldiers looked at one another, then back towards the loft. They could not see her from where they stood, and they were reluctant to trust her. “It’s a trick. Don’t go up there,” said Javaan.

“You’re a hostage, are you? What’s your name?” asked Balthazaar.

The voice replied, “I’m Linde! Linde Lumina! I’m Matuzan—these people stole me from my home in Zhoulcha! They killed my parents right in front of my eyes, sir! Please, please, you have to believe me…!” She broke down into sobs, each one heavy with sorrow.

The soldiers stood in silence, expressions twisting as she tugged at their heartstrings. Balthazaar turned to Javaan and said, “If this is a trick, she’s the greatest actress in the world.” With that, he began climbing the ladder once more. Skel and Javaan held their ground and watched him disappear into the loft.

Balthazaar looked around at the dilapidated space. The corners were cluttered with wood and stone debris. Biscuits and dates were scattered across the floor, leading up to a veiled woman with striking pink eyes. She was shackled to a metal bar on the wall by her wrists. It seemed she hadn’t been lying, for the shutters were wide open and the last bandit was nowhere to be seen.

“The area’s secure!” announced Balthazaar. He approached the hostage, then remembered he was covered in reeking filth. “Skel, get up here and help this woman! I don’t want to give her a disease…Ugh, is there wash basin around here?”

“In the corner over there,” the woman told him, nodding towards a bucket of cloudy water. Balthazaar thanked her and began washing as Skel made his way up the ladder, leaving Javaan to stand guard on the first floor. Skel inspected Linde’s shackles for a moment. He tried to open them, but they were securely stuck around her wrists.

“We need a key,” he determined. He turned to Linde and asked, “Do you know where it is?”

Fear rounded Linde’s pink eyes. “No,” she gasped, “no, no, there has to be another way! Try again!”

The short chain rattled as Skel shook her wrist and replied, “They won’t open, woman, I’m telling you! The only way to get you out is to unlock them with a key, so where is it?”

“Hey, wait! I can pick locks!” called Javaan from the first floor.

Skel rolled his eyes and called back, “Oh, how fortunate! The man who can’t climb ladders can pick locks!”

Linde let out a deep sigh. “The chief has the key,” she said solemnly.

“The chief?” queried Balthazaar. He jerked his thumb towards the open window. “He wouldn’t happen to be that big guy, would he? We saw him leave the outpost a while ago with a couple of satyrs. That’s the only reason we broke in here. We thought no one was home!”

Linde replied, “Yes, that was him! He won’t be back until high sun, at least.”

Turning to Balthazaar, Skel hissed, “We can’t possibly wait for that behemoth to return! We’ll all be killed!”

“Please don’t leave! Not without me! You can’t…!” cried Linde. Her voice quaked with tears once more.

Balthazaar looked upon her with pity all over his face. Skel waved a green hand in front of the man, said, “Balthazaar, use your brain! I’ve seen ogres swing horses around like ragdolls. What do you think he’ll do to us? We must leave the girl behind. We have no choice.”

“No! Don’t!” Linde wailed, squirming in her binds. “They’re going to sell me into slavery, don’t you understand? They’re headed for the Evangeline border, and once I cross it, there’s no way I’ll ever get out! This wasn’t supposed to happen! I-I was supposed to graduate arcane school! My mother was going to teach me how to be a dressmaker, but she…”

Tears spilled from Linde’s eyes, staining her veil. “…she’s dead! She’s dead because these heartless bastards killed her! Don’t let them do this to me, please! You can’t! Don’t you have a heart?”

She stared hard into Skel’s eyes, quivering with fear and anger. Skel couldn’t meet her gaze for long. He turned away with a sigh and scrubbed at the bridge of his long nose. From the first floor, Javaan called, “I mean, we could always cut off her hands! We’ll wrap the stubs and get her out of here before they return!”

Linde let out a loud gasp. Balthazaar furrowed his brow and replied, “We’re not cutting off anyone’s hands! Just give me a moment to think and—”

But it seemed they had no such luxury, for in that moment, a satyr darted through the open doorway. He was the very same bandit who escaped through the window, and he thrusted an accusatory finger at Javaan as he screeched, “They’re still here, Boss! You’re all dead! You hear me? _Dead_!”

A massive, leathery-skinned ogre stormed through the doorway after him. The bandit chief snorted, panting as if he’d run a long distance to arrive. He looked around the room and saw Javaan, backed against the corner with his machetes raised. He saw Balthazaar and Skel looking down at him from the loft. The chief’s two satyr cohorts flanked him, ready to attack with wooden clubs full of rusty nails.

The ogre didn’t say a word. Overcome by rage, he simply let out a monstrous bellow and charged at Javaan. The centaur acted quickly, leaping over the broken table. The chief hit the wall, reoriented himself, and clumsily clambered over the table after him. The wood broke under his weight and he collapsed in a pile of debris, struggling to get back to his feet.

Javaan whirled around and delivered a swift kick to one of the satyr goons. His hoof collided against their hard skull, shocking the air with a crack. The satyr flew backwards and hit another, knocking them both to the ground as Javaan brought his machete down on the window-jumper. The jumper blocked the blade with his club and rolled between Javaan’s legs. He hid behind the chief, who had finally righted himself and was charging the centaur once more.

There was no time to react. Javaan was tackled onto the sandy floor, the tower booming with shouts and chaos. He flailed his equine limbs at the approaching satyrs. One crumpled as he was kicked in the ribs, another collapsing with a broken leg when Javaan’s hoof crashed into his knee.

“Hold on, friend!” called Balthazaar, and he launched himself over the railing with his saber in hand. Skel watched through wide eyes as Balthazaar landed atop the ogre’s back, driving his weapon in deep with one motion. Only his weight and velocity was enough to drive the blade through both the ogre’s leather armor and equally leathery hide. The chief bellowed in pain and tossed himself off of Javaan. His arms reached for Balthazaar, but the man clung tightly to the top of his back, just out of reach.

One moment, Balthazaar was looking at the back of the ogre’s helmet. The next, all he could see were white stars as something heavy struck him in the back of the head. The ogre bashed him with his long, heavy tail. In his daze, Balthazaar lost his grip on his sword and dropped to the floor. Before the ogre could turn around and crush him, Javaan rammed him down.

Balthazaar heard a distinct jingling sound. He looked to his right and saw it—the chief’s key ring, dangling off his belt right beside him! His body reacted before his brain and Balthazaar found himself reaching for it as Javaan wrestled the ogre on the floor. One of the satyrs was approaching Balthazaar with his club raised. Skel spotted him and sent him flying with a telekinetic blast. The satyr dropped his weapon as he was thrown backwards into a pile of debris.

Balthazaar pulled the key ring with all his might until it broke loose from the ogre’s belt loop. “Skel, catch!” he shouted, but before he could lob it at the loft, one of the satyr goons charged forth and headbutted him in the back.

Balthazaar’s belly hit the floor, the key ring spinning away across the sandy stone. The ogre freed his hand from Javaan’s weight, drew it back and socked him in the face with his spiked knuckles.

Crying out, Javaan threw his hands over his bloody face and scrambled backwards. The spikes left four deep gashes from the top of his forehead to his opposite cheek. The ogre stood up and clumsily swung at Balthazaar. He missed, striking one of his goons instead. The satyr smashed against the wall with a spray of blood and broken teeth, four deep puncture-marks left in his face.

Then the ogre reached for his keys. They were suddenly yanked from his grasp by some invisible force, and he watched in confusion as they floated up towards the loft. Skel snatched them out of the air and quickly began unlocking Linde’s shackles.

The ogre let out another furious roar towards the loft. Javaan took the brief opportunity to charge him from behind, knocking him onto his knees. As the bandits and soldiers fought on the floor below, Linde’s shackles finally opened. Skel pulled her to her feet and ushered her towards the open window.

“Come on, come on!” he urged.

Linde argued, “But your friends—”

“It’s too late for them! We have to go, now!”

Linde wrenched her arm out of his grip. “No! We can’t just leave them behind!” she growled. Before Skel could protest, the elfenne tore her veil away and sprinted towards the railing. She raised her hands, glowing with pulsating white light, and willed all the magic she could muster.

As they wrestled the bandit chief on the floor, Balthazaar and Javaan noticed a bright light above them. The trio slowed their struggle to look up at the curious sight, and then they couldn’t see a thing as the light expanded, blinding them all.

They heard a furious screech erupt from Linde, shrill as a steaming teapot. The temperature dropped in an instant, from oppressively hot to icy-cold. Frost rapidly crystallized and spread along the stony walls. From the frost sprouted thousands of ice crystals, long as a man with points sharp as pins.

White fog filled the outpost. It poured from every window and dissipated into the desert sky. The soldiers were frozen in place, quite literally by the cold air around them. Seconds or perhaps minutes passed before the fog cleared. It drifted away like a curtain, presenting a grisly scene before them.

The ogre and his goons were impaled by thousands of icicle-spears from every direction. The icicles pierced through their bodies and faces, looking almost as if they had grown from their corpses.

The bandits were most certainly dead. They made not a sound and their blood trickled down the long shafts of the frozen spikes. High in the loft, Linde staggered on unsteady feet. Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed against the railing, her petite body slipping right through the wooden bars.

Skel acted quickly, catching her mid-fall with his telekinetic power. She drifted slowly down to the first floor, where Javaan caught her in his stiff, shivering arms.

The room fell silent as the soldiers looked around at the carnage, hardly believing what they’d just seen. Skel made his way down the ladder and joined his cohorts, nearly slipping on one of the many patches of ice.

“Damn,” gasped Javaan, voice stuttering with cold, “no wonder they had her in irons. She’s a sorceress!”

Skel looked at the white-haired elfenne, lying unconscious in the centaur’s arms. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with. Perhaps it would be best to put her back in those irons and be on our way,” he grumbled.

Balthazaar shook his head, already making his way out the door. “If she meant to kill us, we’d already be dead,” he said. “Let’s take her back to our post. We’ll come back and loot this place when the ice melts.”

*

With the bandit hideout neutralized, the soldiers made a safe journey back to their own post. They laid Linde on a bedroll and watched her closely, flinching every time she fidgeted in her sleep. They hadn’t expected so much power from such a small and delicate individual.

She finally awoke just as the sun began to fall. She complained of a terrible headache, struggling to open her narrow eyes. Balthazaar offered her a canteen of water and she took it gratefully, sitting up on the bedroll.

“We can turn you over to our superiors,” Balthazaar told her. “They’ll see you home, I’m sure.”

Linde wiped her lips with the back of her hand and replied quietly, “I told you, my parents are dead. I don’t have a home anymore. I can’t pay for that place by myself! I don’t even have a job! I-I can’t even afford to go back to school or—“

“Don’t you have other family you can stay with?” interrupted Skel.

Shaking her head, Linde told him, “No. I mean, I do, but they’re all the way in Umory-Ond. I’ve never even met them, and based on what my mother told me, I never want to.”

“Where are you going to go then?” asked Javaan. The gashes on his face were covered by bandages, the skin around them dark and swollen.

The elfenne stared at the floor, silent in thought for a long moment. The soldiers waited with anticipation.

Finally she met their gazes and said flatly, “Those traffickers were taking me to the next checkpoint in Y’tan. So I guess that’s where I’ll go.”

The soldiers exchanged looks of confusion. “What? Why on Gaia would you want to be anywhere near that place if it’s crawling with degenerates?” asked Skel.

“ _Because_ it’s crawling with degenerates,” Linde answered through her teeth. “I’m going to Y’tan, I’m meeting those traffickers at the checkpoint, and gods help me, I’m killing every last one of them!”

“Ah. So this is a revenge thing,” said Balthazaar.

“It’s not about revenge,” Linde told him. She looked him in the eyes and continued, “I had a beautiful, perfect life ahead of me. I had parents who loved me, an education, a comfy bed, good food to eat, I had…I had it _all_ …”

Her voice cracked with grief. “…and I didn’t even know it! I didn’t realize how much I had until those men stole it all away from me. Now I have nothing, and that means I have nothing to lose. I don’t want anyone else to suffer like this, not ever! Not if I can help it!”

She looked down at her wrists, scarred with gnarled pink burns from the bandits’ irons. “My parents told me I’d need my hazard spells one day,” she went on, shaking her head. “I thought they were crazy. I didn’t even know how powerful I _was_ until today! I guess all that arcane schooling paid off after all. And to think I complained about it for even a second!”

Tears welled in her eyes and she swiped them away. “I just wish I could apologize to my mother and father. Ugh, I was a terrible brat of a daughter…”

“Oh, enough whining,” spat Skel. “Just be grateful you knew your parents at all! Some of us never had the luxury.”

Javaan sat to the goblin’s left, arms crossed tightly over his chest. He said, “Lowlifes killed my mother too. Right in front of my eyes, just like yours. If I could, I’d tell her I’m sorry I didn’t protect her. I just stood there like a statue while she was eaten alive.”

He scowled, twisting the long scratches on his face. “Nothing we can do about it now. You have to let it go and move forward. You won’t survive long if you keep looking behind you.”

Linde let out a long, ragged sigh. After a moment of silence, she nodded and said, “Thanks, Javaan. You’re a really smart guy.”

The centaur’s brow arched in surprise, then a tiny, prideful smile crept across his lips.

Resting his arms on his knees, Balthazaar leaned forward and asked the woman, “You’re not serious about going to Y’tan, are you?” His bushy brows were knit in concern.

“Of course I am,” replied Linde. “What else do you expect me to do? How am I supposed to sleep at night, knowing there are captives just like me being trafficked all over Serkel?”

“So you think yourself some kind of vigilante,” Skel said dully.

Linde corrected him, “Well, I can’t work for free. If I’m going to save anyone, I need gold for supplies, transportation, things like that.”

Javaan perked up and blurted, “Most of those lowlifes must have bounties on them! If you capture them alive, think of all the money you’d make!”

“There he goes, lusting over gold again…” Skel mumbled. “Don’t get him started. The man’s full of hare-brained schemes.”

“No, I think he’s right,” Linde said brightly. “I could be some kind of…I don’t know. Mercenary? Is that what they’re called?”

Balthazaar laughed, “A woman mercenary! Now I’ve heard it all! You should focus on finding a husband and making a nice home for yourself, not fighting slavers in the godforsaken slums. Leave that dirty work to us soldiers.”

Linde frowned. “No offense to you personally, but you guys are doing a terrible job keeping people safe. I’ve been dragged all over this kingdom these last few weeks, and not only did the Yerim-Mor Guard fail to protect me, but I watched those slavers bribe them more times than I could count! They took the gold and walked away while I begged them for help! How could they be so heartless?”

The soldiers looked at one another, sharing winces and blushes of shame. Balthazaar turned back to her and mentioned, “We rescued you, didn’t we?”

“Sure, by _accident_ ,” she groaned. “You said you were trying to loot that place for food or something.”

“Only because our general thinks we can survive on rocks and kibble!” blurted Skel. “We certainly don’t have enough to feed _you_ , so the sooner you get out of our hair, the better!”

“Skel…” Balthazaar warned, then turned back to Linde and said, “At least stay with us until tomorrow. We’ll loot that tower first thing in the morning, and if we find anything good, we’ll head into Naisa and sell it. We can take you as far as the city proper.”

*

Steam was still rising from the bandit’s outpost when the soldiers arrived, accompanied by Linde. The ice had mostly melted away, leaving damp spots on the floor and a thin haze inside. The slavers’ corpses lie cold and quiet. Each one was mangled by countless puncture wounds.

The group began searching the interior for a loot stash. All they found were piles of trash and debris, but Javaan urged them to keep looking. “They wouldn’t leave it in plain sight,” he explained. “When you have something good, you hide it from your enemies _and_ your friends.”

Balthazaar picked through the slavers’ bloody pockets. “I found something over here! Look at this stuff,” he said, beckoning the others. They approached him and observed the items in his hands: a tin of cigars, a box of matches, and a utility knife.

“Mine,” claimed Javaan, snatching the knife. Skel reached for the tin, but Balthazaar turned his back to him and protested,

“Hey, hey, hey! Go find your own loot! Javaan, give me that knife back! _Javaan_!”

The centaur only snickered as he trotted away, tucking the knife away in his leather vest. The two launched into a bickering match until Linde interrupted, jingling the chief’s key ring in front of their faces. “There’s two keys on this thing,” she said. “The other one has to unlock _something_.”

The group paused in thought. Then Javaan drifted towards a pile of small stones and broken scraps of wood in the corner. It appeared that part of the wall had simply collapsed. But upon closer inspection, Javaan realized the wall was perfectly in-tact, and the mess was very much deliberate. He began digging away the debris with his hooves, and just a short moment later, revealed a trap door beneath.

“This place has a basement? Why doesn’t our tower get one?” Skel queried bitterly.

Balthazaar could only assume, “I bet soldiers used to keep prisoners in there before this place was taken over.”

“Oh.” Skel wrinkled his nose. “Are we sure we want to open it? It’s probably full of rats and diseases…”

“Or gold and jewels!” Javaan suggested brightly, snatching the key ring from Linde. He unlocked the door and it creaked loudly as he pulled it open. Inside was a ladder leading to a dark, inky abyss.

“Damn it,” he muttered, turning back to his friends. “Which one of you bipeds wants to check it out?”

“Not I,” blurted Skel.

“Me either,” said Linde.

Without a word, Balthazaar struck one of the matches he found. He held it between his teeth as he descended the ladder, lighting his way. The others watched him disappear, then they jumped when they heard him cry out.

“Are you okay?” called Linde. To her surprise, his booming laughter echoed back. A copper necklace suddenly flew out of the doorway and landed by her feet. Next came several goblets, rings, shoes, clothes, and other random items that were surely ripped away from a passing trade cart.

“There’s a whole hoard of things down here!” cried Balthazaar. “It’s like my grandfather’s attic!”

Skel inspected one of the shoes, turning it over in his hands. It had clearly never been worn, made of fine alligator skin and embroidered with beads. He kicked off his own tattered shoes and slipped his feet into the new ones.

After some time, Balthazaar poked his head out from the doorway and panted, “There is way too much stuff down here. We’ll have to make several trips to sell it all.”

“I suppose we should hold on to those keys then,” mentioned Skel. After a short pause, he added, “And this tower, for that matter. We reclaimed it from those slavers, fair and square! Our superiors ought to promote us all.”

Balthazaar snapped, “You know they won’t. They’ll seize all this stuff for themselves, then leave us with nothing like they always do.”

“Then we won’t report this,” said Javaan, pulling off his green cloth sash. He threw it to the floor and decided, “I joined the military to escape corruption, but this kingdom is corrupt all the way through.”

Eyeing him warily, Skel queried, “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I quit,” Javaan told him flatly. He gestured to the pile of loot and continued, “If we followed orders, we’d be starving to death at our post! But we went our own way, and look what we found! Our superiors are rats! We’re clearly better off without them!”

“Javaan, that’s treason!” exclaimed Balthazaar.

The centaur stomped his hoof and replied passionately, “What is more important to you? The rules or this woman’s life?” He swept his hand towards Linde. “We never would have rescued her if we did as we were told! They don’t care about their soldiers, they don’t care about their people, so why do you care about them?”

Balthazaar opened his mouth to reply. His tongue found no words, so he closed it again and sighed through his nostrils, raking a hand over his shaven head.

“I agree,” said Skel, pulling off his own sash. “The kingdom treats us like dirt. I don’t know about you, but I’m worth more than a dead steed and stale gruel. I’m an educated man! Why am I wasting my talents on the king when he won’t even offer decent shoes in return? This is just how my wretched masters treated me in Barha! No more, I say!”

With that, the goblin pitched his sash at the floor and crushed it under his new shoes. Linde’s eyes darted between the soldiers, full of uncertainty. “You’re all deserting the military?” she asked.

“I am. And he is,” replied Javaan, pointing to Skel. Then he turned to Balthazaar and said, “What about you, Balthazaar? Will you join us as free men, or will you stay here and suck off old King Rozz until you die?”

Balthazaar planted his hands on his hips. “You have a serious problem with authority, don’t you?” he asked.

“I have a serious problem with being dead,” Javaan corrected sharply.

The tower fell silent for a long moment. Balthazaar’s head hung low, eyes drifting around at all the valuable loot scattered before him. He looked at Javaan and his defiant expression, Skel and his sophisticated posture, Linde and her determined gaze.

Then he looked down at himself, smeared with dirt and clad in shredded, worn armor. His green sash, meant to be worn proudly over his chest, was falling apart at its rotting seams just like the kingdom it represented.

Balthazaar’s sash hit the floor. He had made his decision.

“You know,” he began, tipping his head towards Linde, “I think this woman is onto something. Beating up lowlifes is pretty lucrative.”

A big, toothy grin spread across the elfenne’s face. Approaching the dead ogre, Balthazaar pulled the giant steel gauntlets off his fists and slipped them onto his own. He banged his knuckles together with a metallic clang. “And the harder we hit, the more loot we get.”

“So we should work together! As a gang!” exclaimed Javaan.

“No, not a gang! We’re not criminals! More like a, uh…squad,” said Balthazaar. “Linde, where did you say that next checkpoint was?”

“In Y’tan,” she answered. “They were going to pass me off to some other gang of scumbags in the red light district.”

“And after all this, you still want to go there?”

Linde nodded. “Yes. Not as a victim, but as their worst nightmare. I’ll put an end to that disgusting operation even if I have to do it alone!”

With a smile, Balthazaar clapped her on the shoulder and told her, “You won’t be alone.” Then he turned to Skel and Javaan. “You guys want to punch some lowlifes until gold comes out?”

Javaan scooped Skel into his arms, rearing up on his hind legs with a joyful whoop. The goblin flailed and cursed in his grip as Linde nearly laughed herself to the floor.

*

The loot was loaded into bags and strapped to Javaan’s back. The group of four made the long trek across the desert to Naisa, where they spent all day pawning their finds to anyone who would buy them. They left the sprawling market as the last rays of sunlight disappeared, their pockets jingling with gold.

Skel glanced over at Balthazaar as they walked down the street of worn stone. He said, “It’s a shame no one wanted to buy those gauntlets. Look at the size of them, they look ridiculous on you!”

“Oh, I’m not selling them,” Balthazaar told him, banging his metallic knuckles together. “If I can paralyze a soldier with my bare fists, think of what I could do to a slaver with these! Whoever wants these gauntlets will have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.”

Javaan looked at the horizon ahead. He saw nothing but rolling dunes as far as the eye could see. Their reclaimed outpost lie somewhere beyond it, but after such a long trip with heavy cargo on his back, he was starting to rethink their plan.

“How do you guys feel about splitting an inn room?” he queried.

“What, you need a nap?” jested Balthazaar.

The centaur huffed, “Hey, I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting here! If anything, you should all pay for my share!”

“Alright, alright,” Balthazaar agreed, “we’ll get a room. But nothing fancy! I want to save some of this gold for a set of new armor. I’m not facing those thugs in Y’tan unprepared.”

The four split the cost on a cheap inn room, fit with little more than a wood stove and two double-beds. One of the beds creaked in protest when Javaan sprawled out on top of it. His bulk left no room for anyone else.

“And where am _I_ supposed to sleep?” snapped Skel. “On the floor like an animal?”

Sitting on the opposite bed with Linde, Balthazaar chuckled, “You can sleep at the foot of our bed, like a cat. Gods know you’re short enough!”

The goblin huffed in frustration. He threw all his weight against Javaan’s equine body, growling, “Move your fat hide! You’re half-animal, so you take the floor!”

Javaan tucked his hands behind his head, wearing a calm smirk. “I think I feel a bedbug biting,” he said.

“Move, damn you!” Skel exclaimed, ramming his shoulder against Javaan’s hip.

Just as he did, the bed suddenly let out an awful creak. The bottom supports collapsed with a boom. Metal bars broke free from their rusty bolts and the old mattress sunk inwards, folding like a book. Javaan lay silent with his four legs straight in the air, the others looking on in shock.

After a moment, Skel stepped away from the bed and said, “I had _nothing_ to do with that.”

By the end of the night, the group found themselves awkwardly huddled together on one bed. Javaan nudged Balthazaar and snickered, “I hope your wife won’t be angry with you for sleeping with your squadmates!”

“Would you shut up? This is your fault in the first place!” barked Skel, tightly tucked into the curve of the centaur’s back.

“If you guys try anything like that with me, you’re losing your peckers to frostbite,” Linde warned sharply.

Balthazaar assured her, “I’m not that kind of man, Ms. Lumina. My parents taught me better than that. You’re safe with me.”

“I don’t do that,” added Javaan. “But, uh…I used to run the streets with a guy that might.”

Linde turned to him, face wrinkled in disgust. “Ew! Why would you even talk to a rapist, much less work with one?”

Javaan shrugged. “Because I was stronger than him. He was just the kind of scum who would steal women like you and do gods-know-what with them. There was no way that man ever had a mother. I think a farm animal just shat him out one day.”

“So what happened to him?” asked Balthazaar, brows raised in intrigue.

Javaan scowled and replied, “He joined the military.”

*

Over the next several days, the mercenaries sold the last of their loot from the tower. The money they made was invested in new, gleaming armor and weapons. They walked away from the Naisa blacksmith with their heads held high, ready to face the world on their own terms.

“When we’re done breaking skulls in Y’tan, we should catch a flight to Duali,” said Balthazaar. He stood on the roadside with the others as they waited for a carriage.

“And what could possibly be waiting for us in a backwater cesspit like Duali?” asked Skel.

Balthazaar narrowed his eyes and told him, “My _wife_ , that’s what. We can stay at my house for a while, maybe take care of some jobs around town. I just want to make sure she’s alright.”

Linde grinned. “Aww. You must really love her,” she said.

“I do.” Balthazaar nodded. “She thinks I don’t, but it’s true. How much jewelry do you have to buy a woman before she knows you love her?”

Smacking her palms against her face, Linde laughed, “Oh my god, you’re kidding me…”

“What?”

“Nevermind,” the elfenne said wearily, wearing a faint smile. “Here comes our ride. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about how silly you are on the way to Y’tan.”

The carriage rolled to a stop on the sidewalk, a lengthy vessel with two dozen seats and a canvas top. It was drawn by six groaning, snorting camels. The mercenaries passed gold to the driver before boarding the carriage, and off they rode towards their first mission together.

From that day forward, they were known as the Steel Knuckle Squad. The student, the felon, the slave, and the urchin bowed to no masters. They vowed to never fall back into the wretched places from where they came, and to always reach for greater things.

They would not be like those that oppressed them, would not travel the path of least resistance. They knew well that such a path would only lead back to the places they fought so hard to escape.

The Steel Knuckle Squad travelled to Y’tan, where they delivered swift justice to the slavers operating there. The captives they rescued hailed them as heroes, but they knew that for each right they wronged, there were two more wrongs to right.

If the kingdom guard was so unwilling to right them, the mercenaries figured they would take it upon themselves. There was endless evil to fight, and with it, endless rewards to reap.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Any feedback, including criticism, is appreciated. I hope you enjoyed this story. If you want to see more Looming Gaia stuff, this blog is for you: https://loominggaia.tumblr.com/post/175087795478/looming-gaia-masterpost


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